DW Kanye West SS 2012 Review

 Ugggh this is so mundane

  And what is up with those jeeeeans?!

Eniko Mihalik's tits wear dress by Kanye West

By now you’ve probably read a ton of reviews on Kanye West’s debut womenswear collection. My impression is that he thinks that by doing things (in what he believes to be) the right way will win approval from (what he believes to be) his peers. This is seemingly all he wants to do, to seek approval. Where is his interest in dressing women because I don’t see it in this collection?
Apparently the clothes were made by Central Saint Martins graduates in London. The inspiration was like, let’s take a Givenchy print but bead it like a Balmain dress and then cut it like a Céline jacket. Everything looked familiar and that always breeds contempt. A lot of fashion journalists are focussing on the major fit issues but honestly they were no shittier than Joseph Altuzarra’s. There was an awful pair of Céline inspired colour blocked pants with zippers running down the front and back of the thigh. These pants were in desperate need of a waistband. This was paired with a white long sleeved top that for some reason appeared to have no buttons to close it. Tits in a blanket. And a black long sleeved mini dress with a very wide and very deep cut in the front was almost tits falling out of a blanket. That was probably the most offensive look in the collection and I don’t mean that in a pro-feminist kind of way. It was just so poorly designed that it should have been vetoed but I’m thinking a lot of other shit was culled before show day and he may have felt forced to throw it in to flesh things out.
Another issue I have. A lot of reviewers are harping on about how there was too much fur and too much leather. Prada did fur last season and everyone chuckled and thought how marvellous and clever Miuccia Prada was to do so. So in Kanye’s defence, show as much fur as you want. And for all my Kanye bashing you’d think I could consider that this was his debut collection and I should ease up on the guy. No. This isn’t baby's first step. This is a career and sitting front row at a handful of fashion shows for 6 years is not adequate training. Neither is picking leather swatches at Louis Vuitton for a line of sneakers.
Also he should not have shown in Paris because he doesn’t deserve to. Designers work for years before they show in Paris because it’s the tippy top, the big league. Did Alexander McQueen debut in Paris? Marc Jacobs? Vivienne Westwood? A showroom in London would’ve been more appropriate. And here’s an abbreviated transcript from the after party where West had a rant and begged for a chance.

Thank you for anybody that didn’t believe, because they motivated us to break our boundaries ... we don’t know what the reviews will be, we don’t know what they will say, but I got a chance to go to Italy and feel those fabrics....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.

Other celebrities that have clothing lines such as the Olsen twins and Victoria Beckham faced the same criticism, scepticism and derision that West got. And to be fair, many fashion journalists were quite tame in their reviews (except for Eric Wilson of NYT). To do fashion you need to be incredibly focussed and determined and it is your sole career. You can’t be a rapper and a fashion designer and expect sparkling results. If he is truly committed to womenswear design-and I believe he is not-he would quit the music business. Currently this looks like a poorly conceived vanity project.