14 DAY TRIAL // Kanye West is working his way up to becoming a complete artist, moving from music to high fashion. He's just unveiled his second collection at the ongoing Paris Fashion Week, but voices online are rushing to pan it for its excessive use of fur, leather and wool.
The rapper has always loved fur, that much is a given. He's been attacked by PETA countless times for wearing natural fur and thus setting a bad example for those who look up to him, and he always fought back.
Chances are he'll do the same as regards criticism to his Fall 2012 line, which relied heavily on fur, leather and wool.
The Daily Mail's Liz Jones points out in a scathing editorial that those who did love Kanye's more recent designs probably don't even know what they're made of – and, most importantly, how many animals have to die for them.
Many items, be they pants, skirts or jackets, were made of astrakhan, which is actually the wool off a very young Persian lamb.
It mustn't be older than 10 days, or else the wool gets a lighter color and isn't as smooth and as curly. This means it dies young, sometimes even before it's born.
“Yes, a foetus,” Liz Jones writes. “The sheep is slaughtered, and the unborn lamb is ripped from her womb, its coat still curly and unformed.”
Kanye also likes crocodile skin, leather and fur, all of it obtained in the most cruel and immoral manner, the piece goes on to say.
Jones believes the rapper is being sponsored by the fur trade, which would explain why he's designed his entire collection like this.
“He was undoubtedly sponsored, probably by Saga furs, the body that governs and promotes the fur trade in north America,” she says.
At the same time, by using these materials, Kanye is trying to create the impression of luxury – but it's only to cover the fact that he lacks originality completely.
“He has no ideas, or anything new to give us. He doesn’t know how to cut a pattern, or construct a seam, or even sew a buttonhole,” Jones says.
“But he wants us to think his collection is luxurious, elitist and covetable, so he falls back on the thing that all designers with no imagination or morals fall back on: electrocuting small animals [...], and often skinning them alive,” she adds.
What's even worse than the fact that Kanye put out such an immoral and unnecessary collection is that the fashion industry embraced it wholly, praising it as if it were a milestone.
