This weekend Kanye West debuted his fashion collection Dw by Kanye West. A more understated gentleman might have chosen an event in Los Angeles or New York attended by friends and supporters and a handpicked selection of press as the place to show these first designs. Kanye West is not that gentleman. Kanye West debuted his fashion collection during Fashion Week. Paris Fashion Week.
What sashayed down the runway was Kanye's Spring/Summer 2012 vision - presumably as interpreted by his possible collaborator Louise Goldin - of leather, fur and cleavage.
So what did the critics make of it all?
Well, a lot of the responses have been negative, ranging from WWD's gentle: "It had the earnest veneer of a beginner, which was sort of endearing" to the rather more cutting: "Even those actresses turned designers, Lindsay Lohan and the Olsen sisters struggled to look engaged," from the Telegraph.
Photo: PA
There were a couple of muted positives, stating that they saw where he was coming from even if he was making rookie errors all over the shop.
Our own feeling towards the collection was that it paid homage (rather a lot of homage) to the likes of Céline and Balmain but the Kanye twist wherein those things come packaged with a side order of baby oil and bad fitting and an overabundance of fur is not really our cup of tea.
Photo: PA
We're also not sure where front row resident Lindsay Lohan comes into the equation. Was the singer-turned-actress-turned-designer-collaborator-turned-sort-of-actress-turned-I-don't-know-what there as a friend or as a warning from history (coughUngarocough). Or perhaps she was there as a cipher for Kanye's target market which Forbes pegs as:
"Women who have to attend the Grammy Awards in statement making clothes that reveal a lot of skin."
Kanye himself announced during a speech at his collection's afterparty "This is my first collection. Please be easy. Please give me a chance to grow." But when you choose to set yourself up as an equal to some of the greatest fashion houses in the world you're going to get judged on those terms and it may well not be pretty.
For more celebrities at Paris Fashion week, check out the gallery below: