Kanye West’s fashion shows, like most things involving Kanye West, are deeply polarizing. Over the past four seasons, we’ve watched West emerge as one of the few designers to include lots of diverse models, then get slammed for his casting call practices. He has the star power to cause other designers to reschedule their shows around his, but is criticized as an egomaniac.
This year, though, his Yeezy fashion show sounded more like a twisted nightmare than a twisted fantasy.
Guests were shuttled from Manhattan to a former smallpox museum on Roosevelt Island, where some 100 models including Teyana Taylor and Chanel Iman waited for hours in the heat for the show to begin (The New York Times’ review of the show was titled “Waiting For Kanye”).
When the show finally did begin, two models fainted while standing in the heat, and Women’s Wear Daily reports that no one but other models moved to help them. Another 30 models had to sit down in the grass 20 minutes into the show.
Some models had issues with the footwear.
And at one point, Bruce Pask, the men’s fashion director at Bergdorf Goodman, got up out of his seat to help a struggling model get to the end of the runway. The Times reports she told him “I think I’m going to pass out.”
Another person who was completely unimpressed by the elaborate showing was Stella Bugbee, editorial director of The Cut. She went in on the show in what can only be described as a Kanye-style rant.
Despite all its obvious shortcomings, visually, the show still looked pretty darn cool.
And hey, at least now we have these images of the Kardashian/Jenner crew posing awkwardly on a staircase.
Here’s hoping next year the models are treated a bit better than this.
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