With a celebrity front row, Kanye West rolls out Yeezy shoes

NEW YORK— With Beyonce, Rihanna and Diddy among the front-row celebrity royalty, Kanye West rolled out his Yeezy Boost shoe line for Adidas on Thursday as his baby North fussed in mama Kim Kardashian’s arms next to a stone-faced Anna Wintour.

Models, men and women, wore minimal neutral tights or street wear in red, green and black to let the shoes shine in a tech-driven unveiling that included a simulcast to 42 theaters on three continents around the world.

A mysterious Yeezy website with a countdown clock had gone up last week to stoke excitement over the highly anticipated release, West’s inaugural collaboration with Adidas Originals.

An app was set up to take reservations for the gray suede high tops, to be collected and paid for at Adidas and other stores Saturday — in New York City only for the moment.

Reservations were full within minutes, an Adidas spokesman said. Only 9,000 pairs of the 750 Boosts will be sold, at $350 a pop, on Saturday with more available Feb. 28 worldwide.

Kanye’s voice was on blast talking about art, freedom and making a difference as the show opened in a cavernous space downtown. “I want people to feel like awesome is possible,” he declared. Then came the calming drone of a trumpet, followed by loud, edgy music as his models stood solemnly in rows. They marched in lockstep to take their turn in front of a scrum of cameras before walking off in single file to make room for the next line.

West has promised the presentation will be repeated over two days at 10 locations. Lucky ticket-holders who scored theater seats in countries ranging from Australia and Finland to France, Germany, Russia and the UK got to watch live.

Backstage after the show, West was chill and smiling, a pair of his new Yeezys with their thick white soles and wide strap across the laces in place. A side zip and front perforations complete the look of the lead style, which comes with a spare set of laces.

The rapper has big plans to create more Yeezys, for women and kids as well, after leaving Nike for Adidas more than a year ago.

He has spoken of the “isms” in fashion and in life — classism, elitism, racism. But on Thursday, after the crowd thinned out, he had no problems on his mind, refusing to talk about his Grammys diss of Beck, which he retreated from in a radio interview Wednesday.

“I just focus on beauty, fabric, proportion and try to get the price where the kids can get a hold of it,” he told The Associated Press of his Yeezys after urging fans to avoid “shoe wars” and thefts and be patient for more of the shoes to come.

How do the trainers symbolize Kanye?

“It’s not me. It’s the people,” he said. “I think that there’s something that people have been wanting and missing and this is my proposition, you know, to contribute in some way. I want to contribute to society through usable art.”

The star-studded presentation also drew Jay Z, Russell Simmons and Justin Bieber. Beyonce had a good time.

“I thought it was beautiful,” she said backstage after the show. “Very innovative. I loved how the ladies lined up.”

Also attending were Kardashian Momager Kris Jenner and Kim sisters Kendall and Khloe, who smiled from the front row against the backdrop of New York Fashion Week’s opening day and the NBA All-Star game this weekend.

source: lifestyle.inquirer.net

Will ‘Kimye’ be the death of Vogue?

Kim Kardashian and Kanye West couldn’t be happier that they finally got their Vogue cover. As for the rest of the world—not so much.

Did the magazine sell out?

When news broke that Anna Wintour just granted Kim Kardashian’s wish by putting her and fiancé Kanye West on the cover, some thought that this was simply some April Fools’ joke. And when the Internet finally came around to the fact that “Kimye” had indeed landed the cover of the world’s most prestigious fashion magazine, readers did not take Wintour’s decision lying down.

The reaction was instant and vicious. Actress Sarah Michelle Gellar’s tweet, “Well… I guess I’m canceling my Vogue subscription. Who is with me???” was “favorited” and retweeted thousands of times.

And thanks to the magic of Photoshop, retribution against fashion’s elite magazine has been laughable. Celebrities like Seth Rogen and James Franco, and even Kermit and Miss Piggy have swapped out Kimye—fans even deemed such spoof covers a vast improvement over the original.

And despite the bride- and groom-to-be being given the “Vogue treatment”—photographed by famed photographer Annie Leibovitz, and wearing Lanvin and Saint Laurent, respectively, in a mock-wedding photo pose—the outrage has not been limited to Twitter. Vogue’s Facebook page has been flooded with hundreds of seething messages and comments. Said one: “I’m sick and tired of your posts about Kim Kardashian, that’s why I will unlike your page. You were a magazine with a serious status. Now you remind me of Hello! Magazine (which is better ’cause it’s cheaper for what it offers). Go back to designers, artists, actors and models and maybe I’ll re-like you. Tired of D class reality hookers.”

Added another: “Seriously Vogue??? You consider this stylish??? What is happening to Vogue!!!”

The idea of Vogue, and what it represented, is a concept that the magazine invented. Being a reader myself of the magazine for many years, Vogue has a reputation of featuring only, shall we say, in a more polite fashion, A-list stars on its covers. You know, the supermodels, the Oscar-winning actresses, the Grammy-winning singers and pop stars who have graced the covers of Vogue have trained loyal readers to instinctively note what is and isn’t Vogue.

Kimye, most especially Kim, doesn’t exactly fit into these groups. From her sex tape scandal past to her self-promoting present, she’s a vulgar reality show star who basically represents everything that isn’t Vogue. Putting her on the cover, with Kanye peeking from behind, is an obvious branding faux pas.

Question is, did Wintour make the right decision, or will it lead to a mass exodus of dismayed loyal readers?

The criticisms from readers shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, including Wintour. If you read Wintour’s editor’s note, she already anticipated the flak, and any rumors of ill will between fashion’s gatekeeper and the talked-about couple have been crushed, according to Wintour’s letter from the editor.

She said: “Part of the pleasure of editing Vogue, one that lies in a long tradition of this magazine, is being able to feature those who define the culture at any given moment, who stir



things up, whose presence in the world shapes the way it looks and influences the way we see it. I think we can all agree on the fact that that role is currently being played by Kim and Kanye to a T. (Or perhaps that should be to a K?)… As for the cover, my opinion is that it is both charming and touching, and it was, I should add, entirely our idea to do it; you may have read that Kanye begged me to put his fiancée on Vogue’s cover. He did nothing of the sort. The gossip might make better reading, but the simple fact of the matter is that it isn’t true.”

While it’s unlikely that putting Kim Kardashian on the cover will put Vogue out of business, it is a prestigious brand that has been around for more than a century. It’s a move that might have not been consistent with the magazine’s branding, but it was a clever, shrewd tactic, especially for a business-minded editor like Wintour.

Kimye have about 30 million combined Twitter followers, as opposed to Vogue’s less than 4 million. In an age when the Internet is killing the print business, Wintour’s move was a strategic one to help the magazine sell more copies, which has reportedly declined by more than 10 percent since 2012.

With all the publicity the cover is getting, Wintour will surely achieve just that.

And after the collective discontent over this issue’s cover, notice that something seems to be changing with the magazine’s cover models—starting with the curvier Lena Dunham, then Rihanna, and now Kim. It’s almost as if these are signs of Vogue’s own way, and Wintour’s, I might add, of adapting to and recognizing that the business model it created in the past is no longer sustainable.

Under Wintour’s direction, Vogue, after all, has featured the likes of The Spice Girls and Britney Spears, and has been angling toward more celebrity-driven coverage for decades.

For those of you who really can’t stand Kim, not to worry. I’m betting that Wintour’s next cover subject will be someone all girls are loving right now—

someone more Vogue like Lupita Nyong’o, perhaps?

source: lifestyle.inquirer.net