Kanye West has finally figured out something important about fashion
One in a series on the looks that had people talking at New York Fashion Week.
NEW YORK — As much of the melodrama and hype that could reasonably be shed from any public event involving Kanye West was, in fact, stripped away Wednesday afternoon. In contrast to previous years, the venue of choice for the presentation of his Yeezy Season 5 sportswear collection was not a stadium, an island or even a closely held secret. It was Pier 59, set along the West Side Highway on the edge of Chelsea — a place made famous as part of fashion geography in the “The Devil Wears Prada,” when Miranda Priestly reels off a list of demands that sounds like incomprehensible Sanskrit to her new assistant.
There were looky-loos lined up outside, but organizers kept them from clogging up the walkway. There was modest confusion at the front door — but that was mostly due to a single, rogue security guard who bellowed orders to “FORM A LINE” at a calmly assembled group of guests as if he was a maximum security cop corralling a mob of rioting felons. (This fellow, a regular in West-ville, really needs to practice meditation.)
Pier 59 houses a series of photography studios — large loft spaces that can be transformed to suit a renter’s imagination. West left his studio as a simple black box — albeit one with a very good sound system.
[Kanye West’s Yeezy Season 4 was worse than bad. It was boring.]
Unlike in the past, there was no interminable wait. No models fainted because, in fact, West made very little use of models — live ones, at least. Instead, like several other fashion brands this season, such as Zac Posen and Rag and Bone, Yeezy relied on two-dimensional imagery.
The show was essentially a video. Pictures of models were cast on a two-story box situated in the center of the…