This week it’s all about the next moves for troubled fashion players – Kanye West, whose last collections were panned, and Aussie label ksubi. Read on for the gossip…
Kanye West has announced that he won’t be showing at the next Paris Fashion Week.
It might spell the end of his high-fashion ambitions, after his last two shows at the most prestigious of catwalks flopped badly with critics.
West first started his move into the fashion world with a line in 2009, which attracted huge attention and some very bad reviews.
The clothes were badly fitted, too revealing and not particularly original – the last of which is unforgivable in Paris, one of the toughest fashion weeks in the world.
He fared a little better last season, with a blockbuster show featuring Karlie Kloss – particular pieces merited a bit of praise – but no celebrity has been seen in a single Kanye West-brand dress or suit save for his own girlfriend, Kim Kardashian.
The editors of major fashion magazines also stayed away, and the stockists were wary. Just because a big name will attract lots of attention doesn’t mean people will buy.
Only one piece of the two collections made it to the public – a pair of Giuseppe Zanotti heavily-beaded cream heels, which were sold in Paris’s exclusive Colette boutique.
So now West has quietly bowed out. Rumours say that he may soon release a shoe line, downsizing his ambitions slightly.
However, now the Paris critics might need to find another designer with dreams of glory to bear the brunt of their sarcasm.
Image: Kanye West taking a bow on the catwalk.
Last week we brought you the breaking news that the founding pair behind Ksubi were splitting up.
And we wondered then what the embattled label’s next move might be.
Well, we’ve been answered – they’re ploughing ahead into new areas, forging a partnership with Target to produce an exclusive children’s clothing line.
The line, ksubi Kids for Target, is the first of the Designers For Target collaborations in Australia, and is a new expansion for Ksubi, who previously focussed on expensive streetwear for adults.
The line looks both cute and functional – lots of signature distressed denim, interesting T-shirts and ‘punk aesthetic’.
Everybody involved sounds very pleased, probably because this heralds a new era for Ksubi- their first public venture without one of the founders.
The creative director, Mikey Nolan, said they were ‘really excited’, and that ‘a lot of our collective are starting to have kids of their own’.
Ksubi Kid for Target launches in November for the school holidays and summer, and we’ll be watching closely to see how the venture pans out.
If it succeeds, Ksubi might start exploring kid’s clothing more thoroughly – and that’s a very lucrative market indeed.
Image: Ksubi Kids.
