Fashion’s most famous aficionado, music star Kanye West, turned pro on Saturday with a luxurious hard-edged women’s collection that bucked all the stereotypes about celebrity designers. West has been a front-row fixture at fashion shows for years, but industry insiders had greeted news that he was planning to launch a line of his own with a more than hefty dose of skepticism and plenty of barbed quips about how it would surely be Lindsay Lohan’s leggings line all over again.
So, it was with slightly humbled wonder that the fashion editors, stylists and journalists hand-picked to attend Saturday’s late-night spring-summer 2012 show greeted the sophisticated, highly designed looks on the catwalk.
Sure, West didn’t reinvent the wheel: You could see the influence of established designers — many of shows he frequented over the years. There was a bit of Balmain in the short, sex-drenched dresses and some Givenchy in the gothic, bondage-y leather jackets and skirts, for example.
But luxed-up streetwear elements, like hooded jackets made in a mosaic of crocodile skins, gave the collection a unique voice of its own.
