Kanye and the Yeezy Complex
You know that saying, ‘if all your friends jumped off a cliff, would you do it too?’
How about, ‘If Kanye West asked you to take a 1 hour bus ride, then wait in line for 2 hours, and watch a group of people stand around in neutral toned bodysuits and hoodies, would you do it?’
It sounds farfetched, but it actually happened last week as Kanye’s Yeezy Season 4 collection was shown at New York Fashion Week.
Snippets of Kanye’s Yeezy Season 4 Collection
Editors, fashion writers and journalists alike were given 12 hours notice of the logistical information required to reach the spectacle that would be Yeezy Season 4. Last season’s presentation took place in Madison Square Garden, included a first-play of Kanye’s new album, and left the fashion scene giddy with delight. The first three Yeezy presentations were deemed to have transcended the fashion show norm: they were enormous but intimate, and got people talking. Models were of all shapes and sizes, and those watching and participating felt part of Kanye’s world.
Come Season 4, editors were excited and again ready to be dazed by the production, the show that is Kanye West. After being picked up in buses that weren’t much different to the ones you take to excursions in primary school, Kanye’s guests were transported to Roosevelt Island and shuffled into barricaded lines. Forced to stand in 30+ degree heat for 1–2 hours, guests were eventually let in and were met with 100 or so models standing in formation. Said models were wearing neutrally toned leotards and bodysuits, and had been arranged by long-time Kanye-friend, Vanessa Beecroft.
Audience members crowded under shaded areas like livestock, and began to wonder what part the models in formation would play. They watched as one sat down, and another, and another. Was it part of the performance? Would they wait until each model sat down until the show began?
Aerial view of Kanye’s Yeezy Season 4 presentation
It was when models began to faint, that the tone of anticipation and excitement shifted. No assistance was offered from the show’s crew, and instead audience members offered their water.
Models sitting and drinking water
Making the experience even more uncomfortable was the arrival of Kim Kardashian, and Kylie and Kendall Jenner, who birthed a scary metaphor while simply walking to their shaded seat while models were passing out.
The show itself was held in Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park, which is dedicated to freedom of speech and expression, freedom of religion, freedom from want and freedom from fear. Once the runway show actually commenced, it was unclear what Kanye was trying to say.
Model Amina Blue rips her plastic shoes off
Yeezy Season 4 positively clung to Kanye’s screamingly familiar territory of colours and silhouettes, and some boots were so ill-fitting that models had to be helped to the end of the runway. The clothing was uniform with his previous seasons, but not in the compelling, innovative, drop of the penny type of moment.
It’s easy to point out how ridiculous the entire presentation and chain of events was. His behaviour was an audacious disrespect for people’s time, and no care was shown for the audience’s, or the model’s well being. For someone who is constantly first to claim his own creativity, the showing relied on unoriginal, almost confusing ideas and concepts from himself, and his long-time counterpart Vanessa Beecroft.
Beecroft herself is known for using women as props, and portraying what could be described as blind racism as art. She’s described previous Yeezy shows as glamourous Rwandan refugee camps, and has commented that everyone in war-torn South Sudan looks like model, Alek Wek. She has also undergone a DNA test to truly clarify she wasn’t African-American, and was disappointed to learn her artful personality doesn’t reflect her real life.
Alek Wek, clear representation of war-torn South Sudan
Beecroft’s issues with racial undertones extend to Kanye’s casting call of ‘multiracial models only’, with many believing the call meant ‘not too black’. Kanye’s previous expeditions with race have involved using the Confederate flag to promote his song ‘New Slaves’. He later excused the gesture by stating that the flag represented slavery, and his song was an ‘abstract take’ on making the flag his own.
West wearing his own merchandise with the Confederate flag featured
West is often pinpointed as an early crusader of sorts long before the Black Lives Matter campaign even existed; thanks to his historical off-script rant (maybe one of his first) that ended with ‘George Bush doesn’t care about black people’. Coincidentally, depending on how you look at it, his second album ‘Late Registration’ had come out that week.
Fast-forward to 2015, and an interview with French media source Clique TV revealed West believes racism to be a ‘dated concept’, that it’s silly to attempt to separate and alienate, and that it means nothing.
Two days before the Yeezy Season 4 presentation, West told Vogue, ‘I’m really not here for controversy’. He spoke about wanting to be invisible, and because he physically can’t be, he’s used neutral colours to speak of invisibility in his clothes. West wants his clothing not to be considered a fashion expedition but rather a ‘human proposition’.
Probably the most frustrating thing about the spectacle that is Kanye West, is the sheer media coverage he received, and will continue to be gifted with. We’re talking about Yeezy Season 4 not in spite of what he put models and guests through, but because of it. Most telling of this, is that models who spoke to press after the show felt bad for fainting.
Whether he’s sending bodysuits down the runway or making music videos that portray abusers next to their victims — naked — he’s clearly problematic.
So why do we continue to talk about him?
Mostly, because we can’t help it. Popular culture has placed Kanye upon the thrown of narcissism, mostly through his own promotion of high-self esteem and constantly spoken ability to influence others around him. We love to hate the typical popular culture narcissist, both in spite of and because of their own self-love.
Kanye West is constantly seen as well dressed, more often than not with his equally well-presented wife. This signals care for appearance, which makes us believe in their higher status and attractiveness. West rejected claims that his show and multiracial casting call was an issue, instead blaming the industry for rejecting him as a true design visionary. We pay great mind to this, because he believes so thoroughly in himself and his distorted reality that we too play along with his complete strong self-conviction. Moreover, West wants to be the pioneer, the ‘God’ of art and culture, and these narcissistic tendencies fit our assumed stereotypes of what a leader should be.
Kanye’s well dressed presentation makes us believe in the status he is attempting to portray
Quick psychology lesson: dialectical thinking is a way to hold two opposing points of view, that are still both somewhat truthful. Kanye’s dialectical thinking revolves around the fact that he simultaneously rejects, and worships fame. He yearns invisibility, yet is the first to claim his title as the Steve Jobs or Michael Jordon of music. He wants to create through the mediums of music and fashion, but needs validation to be known as a creator, a visionary, rather than a celebrity designer. In a media-environment where so much information is shared, it’s this type of attention-seeking behaviour that we hear about the most.
We enable Kanye to have us at his mercy because he feels accessible: we’re constantly presented with information about his latest antics, that we almost feel ownership, a connection to his questionable actions. He’s consistently presented as the ‘bad guy’, which typically gains more notoriety in celebrity press. His thoughts on social issues like racism, politics and body image are often used to shape opinions, and even when he’s wrong, we look to him to point out what the incorrect answer could be.
Engaging with him in such a way almost promotes a sense of ‘It’s Kanye’s world, and we’re just living in it’. Maybe the responsible thing to do is not write about Kanye West at all: not his odd tweets, not his obsession with himself, not his fashion shows. We, meaning the general public, the drivers behind what’s considered ‘important’ in the eye of the media, lend Kanye complete and express permission to pull stunts like this. We enable him to have a clear and resonating voice, even when said voice is threatening the use of alien laser beams to destroy any disbeliever’s heads.
On the other hand, maybe it is worth talking about, because Kanye’s audience ultimately holds more power than he. The thoughts and opinions of the audience can reject what we might find to be offensive, and determine the value of what should gain our attention. Maybe next time Kanye says he’s too busy writing history to read it, or that he’s a ghetto Pope, or that no one in the fashion industry takes him seriously when he sends hoodies and thigh-high plastic boots down the runway, be skeptical about it. Gift him the invisibility he longs, and see how long it takes him to start creating fluro-coloured bodysuits.
Originally published at The Isthmus.
