Kim and Kanye Take Paris
I take apart the #KimyeWedding
True to form, Kim Kardashian spent the days leading up to her Saturday nuptials to Kanye West competing with the scenery in a series of viral outfit changes.
First, there was a skintight Balmain that reminded me of Ladurée macarons and Louis XIV interiors. Next, there was the plunging Valentino that looked like it was literally made of money (actually, hundreds of appliqued butterflies). This was followed by a barely tasteful Margiela. At Valentino’s luncheon, Vogue’s caped crusader Andre Leon Talley complimented the china that once belonged to Elizabeth II of Russia. For the rehearsal dinner, Lana Del Rey was flown in to serenade guests with “Young and Beautiful,” a single, fittingly enough, from the soundtrack of The Great Gatsby, the movie version of the morality tale about what happens to people who put on airs. Kimye couldn’t get Versailles for the big day so they settled for the day before, setting up shop in its historic Hall of Mirrors, which is also my nickname for Kim’s Instagram.
The paparazzi may give you anxiety but the selfies will do worse, leaving you with a vague and misplaced sense of injustice. In a candid moment, Kim and Khloé posed in front of the Eiffel Tower by night, repeating the ritual performed by every other tourist before them since the advent of photography. Later, Kim returned to the scene, encased in leather, with bestie Jonathan Cheban, who wore a t-shirt that spelled “BOURGEOISIE” in thick, white lettering. None of us can fully appreciate what it must’ve felt like on the ground, surrounded by that menacing swarm of French-speaking well-wishers.
In the vortex of opulence and narcissism it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that this is, after all, a family affair. Alexander Wang, NeNe Leakes, Big Sean and Tyga rounded out a guest list of BFFs and relations: momager Kris, Kourtney and her hubby Lord Disick, Kendall (the model one), Kylie (the Tumblr one), La La Anthony (wife of Carmelo), Larsa Pippen (wife of Scottie), celebutante Brittny Gastineau and jeweler Lorraine Schwartz, the host of Thursday’s all-girl festivities. Bruce Jenner arrived in all of his tabloid shame. Somewhere not far away, Rob Kardashian was busy getting sewn into his suit. For his part, Kanye kept a low profile, letting his future ex-wife lead the processional. The world’s most beautiful woman is not only his to enjoy in private but ours to behold in public, a symbol of his discerning sensibilities.
Last week, at a panel on women in publishing, BuzzFeed Ideas editor Ayesha Siddiqi called Kanye her mentor. Kanye doesn’t ask permission, he simply does what he wants. She echoed Kanye’s own words to Complex: “If you’re a fan of Kanye West, you’re not a fan of me, you’re a fan of yourself.” It’s a revelation for minorities and immigrants, people, in short, who aren’t used to envisioning themselves in the sorts of creative roles that the privileged take for granted.
Of course, in art, there’s no denying that Kanye’s a revolutionary. But in life, he can be strangely conventional. As with all eccentric personalities, from Walt Disney to Warhol, contradiction amounts to character. For a self-professed minimalist, he sure likes buying stuff. And for all of his avant-garde leanings, he couldn’t have picked a more middlebrow soulmate. Kanye’s contempt for authority is intensified by his need for validation, and vice versa. He’s forever toeing the line between disrupting the system and being complicit in it.
Given Kanye’s considerable gifts for alienating people, we tend to overlook his actual talents. But watch his segment on the Kris Jenner Show and what stands out is his shy smile, a smile that radiates humility and sensitivity. Deep down inside, he’s a good kid who loves entertaining almost as much as he loves his mother. But what’s a mama’s boy to do when he loses his maternal figure? You have two options: slip into dysfunction or find a surrogate.
There’s a saying that goes when you marry someone, you marry their family. What seems like a Freudian nightmare for most people is the American dream for Kanye West. He’s marrying for his daughter and for his personal brand, but also, for the family he’s always wanted: large, loud, accepting, acquisitive. Say what you will about the Kardashians, but unlike other Hollywood dynasties—the Lohans and the Jacksons come to mind—they’ve never sold out one of their own or capitalized on his or her misfortune. Loyalty, not excess, is their most enviable quality.
Love them or hate them, you have to admit that Kim and Kanye deserve each other. But what did Europe ever do to deserve them?
Paris, of course, is the city of love and light. But it’s also the home of the earliest bourgeoisie, the premier destination of aspirational tourism and the birthplace of the department store. Its iconic iron-and-glass covered arcades were precursors of the American shopping mall. It’s the city where people like Rimbaud, who’s famous for being Patti Smith’s favorite poet, and Picasso, who’ll go down in history as Jay Z’s favorite painter, went to seek their fortunes. Kim and Kanye are in good company here, in this city of arrivistes.
Florence, where the actual exchange of vows will take place, has similarly middle-class origins. It was the seat of the Medici, the original media family, who began as bankers and reinvented themselves as statesmen and patrons of the arts. Their money financed the Renaissance, the most awesome of art movements. The site of the wedding ceremony is the Forte di Belvedere, a garrisoned treasury built by Cosimo I de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, on a hill overlooking the city and accessed from his official residence in the city center through a network of secret passageways. The Medici, like the Kardashians, had many haters and it was imperative, in the event of emergency, that they could flee with their assets.
Kim and Kanye are merely the next generation in this illustrious history of kultural kolonizers. Kanye’s cavalier, sometimes comical appropriation of high culture forces us to examine it with a critical distance, exposing its underlying frameworks as snobbish and arbitrary. Why shouldn’t neoclassical architecture and modernist lighting fixtures be subject to the same anthropological scrutiny as, say, jazz music? By broadcasting his wealth, Kanye challenges the notion that good taste automatically equals restraint. But make no mistake: his minimalism has no ideology backing it, is purely aesthetic. Now that he’s conscripted Kim into his army of one, there’s no telling what they’ll desecrate next. We resent them, not because they’re rich or hot or actually pretty unremarkable, but because they undermine our moral alibi.
In spite of the backlash, Kim and Kanye have held their ground. In fact, they court the negative attention. The nature of coupledom is its conflict with society, the secret thrill of public disapproval, the adoption of an “us against the world” mentality. Take Tupac’s Bonnie-and-Clyde-inspired hip-hop allegory “Me and My Girlfriend.” Or, Jay-Z and Beyoncé’s Bonnie-and-Clyde-themed promotional video for their upcoming tour. Or, the real Bonnie and Clyde, whose brutal and senseless deaths, eighty years ago this day, have been recast as romantic martyrdom. Speaking to Angie Martinez last November, Kanye compared his relationship with Kim to another, this time fictional pair of martyrs, Romeo and Juliet.
But seriously, I’m dying to know what these two talk about when they’re alone in the crowd. “Babe, no one gets me like you do,” Kim drones in her daddy voice. “It’s not about branding at a certain point,” muses Kanye, looking all introspective. No wonder the pair’s April Vogue cover felt like such a victory. In another power couple’s recent collaboration, “Pt. II (On the Run)”, the track that plays during the trailer for their never-to-be-released short film, Beyoncé sings, “Who wants the perfect love story anyway? Cliché, cliché, cliché.” According to Kimye, who doesn’t?
This story originally appeared on Revolt TV.
Read more of my writing at www.annakhachiyan.com.
Follow me @annakhachiyan.
