14 DAY TRIAL // Kanye West has an opinion on absolutely everything, and regardless of what some “haters” might say, he is actually a genius. He’s been saying it for years, but never as boldly as he does now, in a series of interviews meant to promote his second fashion collection with Adidas.
Because, you see, Kanye West is also a fashion designer. He wouldn’t have become one, though, if it hadn’t been for his perseverance, because the industry discriminated against him.
Kanye West was found guilty of not being gay
To promote the Adidas collection, which premiered at New York Fashion Week 2015 and was widely mocked as glorified “slave rags,” including by established fashion publications, Kanye did a 2-hour live interview with SHOWStudio’s In Camera series.
You can see the full chat in the video below, but *please be advised that it contains graphic language that might offend. Also, an unhealthy amount of Kanye-wisdom, which is a special kind of wisdom that only Kanye West possesses.
Speaking of his fashion endeavors (the Adidas collaboration is actually Kanye’s second foray into the world of fashion designing), the rapper and all-around genius says that he too was discriminated against - not for being black, but for being straight.
“I feel like I got discriminated in fashion for not being gay. In music, you definitely get discriminated in music if you are gay. It takes amazing talents to break down barriers,” Kanye says. “Everyone thought that when Frank Ocean dropped that it was going to be bad for his career. I feel like it’s so cliché to speak about him as it relates to this subject, but there are people who broke the ground and he broke the ground. The people that break the stereotypes make history.”
If you read in between the lines, while praising Frank Ocean for coming out as gay, Kanye is praising himself for “breaking barriers” and having “amazing talents.”
The fashion of Kanye
Kanye’s first attempt at becoming a fashion designer was a very entertaining disaster: he somehow landed a spot at the Paris Fashion Week, where he got to present samples during 2 consecutive seasons.
His outfits included a lot of fur and leather (all natural, because Kanye doesn’t do the fake kind), but not much sense of style or originality, and nothing of the classiness or elegance he thought they evoked.
After being laughed off the catwalk, though not literally, Kanye went underground for some time, until Adidas approached him for a deal. His first collection showed the direction he would head into: underwear for outerwear and exercise gear posing as glamorous fashion.
Both the first collection and the second, which is the one mentioned above, were widely ridiculed online by both the larger public and industry peers. They were still best-sellers, though and, if you ask Kanye, you will learn that his popularity is “confirmation” of his geniusness.
