Backstage At Kanye West’s Fashion Week Debut

Kanye West‘s debut Paris Fashion Week collection show didn’t reveal the mind of an inventive, self-possessed fashion designer. We saw a handful of references taken – overtly – from a lot of other designers’ past outputs (particularly Balmain, Versace, Azzedine Alaïa) without offering anything truly unique; and the majority of the looks that made the runway just didn’t fit well. Some of the world’s best experts in tailoring and construction – Celine, Dries Van Noten, Lanvin – show at Paris Fashion Week, so some of Kanye’s poorer-fitting pieces stood out like a classroom erection.

Despite less-than-glowing reviews across the board, Mr West begged for a little mercy. At the post-show party he said: “This is my first collection. Please be easy. Please give me a chance to grow. This is not some celebrity shit. I don’t fuck with celebrities. I fuck with the creatives in this room, the amazing people who spend every day of their life trying to make the world a more beautiful place.”

The guy takes this fashion stuff pretty seriously. And the following pictures show just how ‘hands on’ he was in the process. Taken by his friend and entourage-regular Virgil Abloh, these shots show the designer’s involvement with the collection.

View photos via http://virgilabloh.com/.

Title Image by Dimitrios Kambouris via Getty

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