Backstage with Kanye West at Louis Vuitton
“Everybody knows Kanye used to call himself the Louis Vuitton Don. In 2006, he walked on stage at the Def Poetry Jam carrying an LV bag -which wasn’t even available until then- against a backdrop of stacked LV trunks. Not long after that, he hires LV-designer/artist/muse Takashi Murakami as art director for his ‘Graduation’ album. Yeezy might as well have been wearing a T-shirt that said: “Where are you Jacobs?”
It took a while, but the heads at Louis Vuitton got the message. In January 2009, Kanye and head-LV-designer Marc Jacobs pose together at the Paris fashion week as the “Kanye West footwear for Louis Vuitton” hype builds. The shoes, in stores June 2009, are a design collaboration between Kanye and a Louis Vuitton capo: Fabrizio Viti.
Viti has been with Vuitton (and Marc Jacobs) since 2004. He started his illustrious career at Patrick Cox, flipped to Prada and contributed to the Gucci heydays alongside Tom Ford. Two minutes into our talk, it’s clear that Fabrizio wasn’t all that comfortable with the collaboration back when Kanye had the first talks with LV in 2007. What’s a sensitive Italian who never ever listens to hip hop -he prefers his Barbra Streisand records- going to do with an American rap singer, chain blinger, holla at the next chick soon as you blinkin’? Hey, and even worse. That Kanye’s a blogger. And he communicates in caps. IN CAPS, HOMIE!!!”
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