Think back to when you first started experimenting with fashion…before you’d settled into your daily uniform, did you ever try something that didn’t quite work? Were you too eager to test the latest trends? Were you too keen to be seen in the latest It item? While many of us can privately cringe into our misjudged clothes, Kanye can’t.
Long before his Adidas line was even a plausible concept, Yeezy was a fashion provocateur. He’d rap about luxe labels, like Gucci and Louis Vuitton, shout out to designers, like Heidi Slimane, and namedrop his favourite outfit. Want proof? Re-listen to Estelle’s American Boy when he says he’s, ‘Dressed smart like a London bloke, before he speak his suit bespoke, And you thought he was cute before, Look at this pea coat’.
He was the ultimate fashion fanboy. He’d try trends nobody else would be brave enough to go near (cough, shutter shades) and wear his favourite brands head-to-toe. So, when Kanye went to Paris Fashion Week in March 2009, for one of his first times, he went big.
He turned up with a five-person strong entourage, wearing coloured tailoring with a pocket square, driving gloves and a Goyard briefcase, which everyone is still gagging to know: what was in it?
His girlfriend at the time, Amber Rose, came along, as did his friend, the Off-White designer Virgil Abloh. He met LVMH’s Chairman and CEO, Pietro Beccari and Yves Carcelle, hung with Mischa Barton while wearing a white tux and a black shirt, and got a selfie with Karl Lagerfeld.
Though the man now prefers neutrals, that wasn’t the case back then. He was all about clashing lurid colours, and even, dare he admit it now, bold prints. While we might guffaw at how much he’s changed, he also revolutionised the way fashion week was photographed. Suddenly, in the wake of his ’09 entrance, photographers were turning their cameras away from the catwalks and pointing them at the stylish stars of the street. So, while he may want to forget this fashion blip, it's become a standard bearer of how street style is photographed. Sorry, Kanye.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.