Update- Rapper Kanye West may have been his most memorable last night when he premiered his first womenswear collection, DW, at Paris Fashion Fashion Week tonight. (10.1.11) The collection dubbed DW is in honor of West’s late mother Dr. Donde West.
After years of teasing his fans with the possibility for launching a line, rumors of enrollment in fashion school and several other hints, Kanye finally brought his vision to fruition. And he had a few celebrity friends to show support. Fellow designers Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen, Ciara, Lindsay Lohan and even Vogue Editor in Chief Anna Wintour.
Kanye’s first collection was met with mixed reviews, although I think many were pleasantly surprised.
Ciara who phoned into MTV minutes after the collection stated,
“It was amazing. The clothes, the feeling in the room, the energy backstage — it really feels special,” she said. “It was definitely one of the most talked-about events [of Paris Fashion Week], because it wasn’t going to be your typical show. This doesn’t happen every day, and to see someone like Kanye, who aspires to succeed in fashion, to get so much respect and cross over like this, it was monumental. It was an historic moment.”
The Wall Street Journal wasn’t as kind,
The only thing more painful than witnessing the dress was watching the model pitch down the runway in shoes so ill-fitting that her spike heels were bending at angles. “I feel sorry. Why not take that look out?” asked one cringing magazine editor.
A close friend and designer Jeremy Scott offered more kind words,
“Everyone probably thought it was going to be another like Jennifer Lopez’s Macy’s line and it’s not, it’s really clear it’s not,” said Scott, who’s known for his kooky, colorful designs. “Kanye has impeccable taste and you see his taste level is up there. He’s a fan of design across the board. I have five-hour long conversations with him all the time about everything because he’s so obsessed, and I think we got a little bit of an insight into his mind there.”
A Forbes editor added, My personal take on the collection–they are clothes for Kanye’s tribe, women who have to attend the Grammy Awards in statement making clothes that reveal a lot of skin.
Kanye said to reporters after the show
“I’m so scared, I’m so nervous. The biggest conversation I hope I can end tonight is the whole ‘celebrity designer’ thing/ That’s the biggest hurdle when you want to get amazing people to work for you.”
Unfortunately for Kanye West and his DW collection, there wasn’t much of a chance of the critics jumping up with excitement. Many of the negative reviews had an air of “how dare he think he’s good enough to launch a collection at Paris Fashion Week?!?!”
Quite honestly if you review a handful of collections online, DW fits right in. Were there some misses, sure, but that to can get better with time. What do you think of Kanye’s collection below. There were just under 30 pieces, most of them are in the gallery below.
