What Kanye West gets right, and what he gets wrong
Designer hinted his athletic-wear collection for Adidas would fill fashion's creativity void, but it didn't
At half past the appointed hour for the unveiling of Kanye West’s collaboration with Adidas Original, the crowd of non-celebrity guests was still standing in a cramped hallway in a downtown warehouse along Manhattan's West Street waiting for the doors to open. It was the kind of dawdling that puts a fashion audience in a bad mood as they envision their tightly choreographed schedules of back-to-back appointments collapse.
The organizers of the Perry Ellis show — in the unfortunate position of having to follow a superstar musician and sensing that he might keep to his own Yeezy clock — had dispatched minibuses to whisk guests uptown to the brand’s more sedate venue. They sat on the street idling.
People expected hubris from West. And he did not disappoint. Indeed, when guests were finally seated and various Kardashians, including wife Kim, were settled in alongside Rihanna and Russell Simmons, Jay-Z, Beyonce, Diddy and more, West rattled off a manifesto of sorts in introducing the collection.
"People just write negative things," West began. They ask: "Why’s he still trying?"
And then he answered that rhetorical question: "I want to create something better for you," he declared. "We have been limited. There’s a lack of creativity in every field because people are afraid." West promised to jar the eyes with a fashion revelation and delight the ear with a sonic explosion.