Yesterday, Miley Cyrus closed out her VMAs hosting gig in characteristically f’kn ridiculous style, inviting Wayne Coyne and a selection of the queens from Ru Paul’s Drag Race on stage to perform her pro-weed song ‘Doo It!’, then dropping a surprise new album, Miley Cyrus And Her Dead Petz, which is streaming for free right the fuck now.
It was all pretty characteristically Miley and all pretty genius, unless you happen to be Melbourne fashion designers DI$COUNT UNIVER$E, who presumably watched the performance with jaws slightly agape, at seeing their signature outrageous styles and motifs all over the stage, without any credit or apparent acknowledgement from Cyrus herself.
Miley has long been a supporter of DI$COUNT UNIVER$E, and she was one of the first celebrities, along with Kimbra, to wear their work. Yesterday’s outfits, however, featured no input from DU, even though they drew heavily on the outsized tongues and eyes and explosions of sparkling colour characteristic of the duo’s aesthetic.
Overnight, DU’s Cami James and Nadia Napreychikov released a statement via Instagram expressing their dismay at the situation, saying:
“To our dearest DU Family, THANK YOU from the bottom of our hearts for all of the LOOVE and support. We are obviously distraught, and this couldn’t have come at a worse time as we are on our official last day of making the new collection, so we are trying our best to rise above and stay focused. We’ve kept our mouths closed about a lot of things in the past, but the one thing you can’t TAKE and get away with is someone’s IDENTITY. We know it might be risky for us career-wise to comment on this, but if we didn’t, it would mean we stand for NOTHING. We will be discussing this soon. Love of love, Nadia and Cami xoxo.”
In summary:
Miley’s look was pulled together by her stylist Simone Harouche, who told the Hollywood Reporter that her looks on the night were inspired by “many different eras and ideas”.
The queens wore outfits designed by Brad ‘BCalla’ Callahan, who has seen an influx of not-so-kind comments on his Instagram over the past 24 hours.
To make things even more awkward, DU actually did have a presence at the VMAs, thanks to style queen Baddie Winkle, who wore one of their designs to the show.
We have reached out to DI$COUNT UNIVER$E for further comment, but Miley’s camp, who are probably still putting out fires from yesterday’s unfortunate and apparently unscripted Nicki Minaj incident, have not said anything.
