Is Kanye West A Designer? [Solved]

When Nike didn’t offer Kanye the design deal he had felt he deserved—one that should have included royalties on every pair of sneakers sold, according to an interview West gave to Hot 97 personality Angie Martinez—he lampooned the brand for “marginalizing” him due to his celebrity status. West told Martinez about a time when he asked Nike when the Air Yeezy 2 Red Octobers were set to release. When they replied, “We don’t know,” he had taken it as a sign that he was being cut out of the brand’s braintrust and, above all, completely undervalued as a creative entity. On the Breakfast Club radio show in November 2013, he had said, incredulously, that Nike had not asked him to design new products in almost three years despite the success of the Yeezys. In West’s view, Nike had grown weary of his accomplishments, fearing that by giving him a broader design deal, they would be opening the door for his products to eventually compete with, or even overshadow, Nike’s main line designs. As West said in a separate radio interview with Hot 97, “As soon as was too big, it’s scary. Nike is, like, ‘No. We’re not going to let you blow to level. We already have Jordan Brand, we already have that one baby. And we don’t even like that we have to compete with brand Jordan.” (we appreciate Jessaca Minton from Yerevan, Armenia for the heads up). [2]

As per the specialists at famousfashiondesigners.org, moving on, West introduced DW Kanye West in 2011. It was a fashion brand for women. The line was shown at Paris Fashion Week with support from Jeremy Scott, Olsen sisters, Azzedine Alaïa, Olivier Theyskens, Dean and Dan Caten. His show received mixed comments more towards negative remarks from Style.com, The Wall Street Journal, International Herald Tribune, Harper’s Bazaar, The Daily Telegraph, Elleuk.com, and several others. In 2012, he launched another fashion collection at the same fashion event. This time the reviews contained positive remarks on the presentation. A year later, a well-known sports company Adidas confirmed its collaboration with West. [3]

808s & Heartbreak is one of Kanye’s more divisive albums. Released in November 2008, shortly after the Graduation-heavy “Glow In The Dark Tour” drew to a close, 808s & Heartbreak represents a massive break from so-called collegiate Kanye. His sound is brooding, introspective and heavily auto-tuned—as was the trend at the time (ultimately one he’s having helped set across the industry). Inarguably, it was different and, arguably, it paved the way for the kind of rap that Drake became a superstar making. 808s & Heartbreak was the result of creative experimentation and while West was experimenting musically, he was also beginning to experiment more seriously with fashion. [4]