Kanye West recently said a dream of his would be to do a project with fashion designers Raf Simons, Helmut Lang and Martin Margiela and artist Vanessa Beecroft. But hasn’t he already?

Helmut Lang’s current clothing line.

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Margiela bodysuits

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Raf Simons

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Vanessa Beecroft performance art

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Below are all photos from Kanye’s Yeezy Season 1&2 fashion shows

Kanye may not have worked with all those designers/artists, but all of their influences can clearly be seen. In fact, Vanessa Beecroft worked with Kanye on these fashion shows.

Here is a comparison of shoes from Helmut Lang and Kanye West:

Helmut Lang sneaker

Yeezy Boost

I could create an entire blog of side by side pictures of Kanye West’s Yeezy clothing line and the inspirations behind them but someone already did that.

And if you click the links I provided under the first 3 sets of pictures, you will see that these designers’ prices are equally as high if not higher than Kanye’s Yeezy Season 1 clothing line. Which can also be purchased here, here, and here.

Isn’t the whole point of “lounge pants” to lounge around? I wouldn’t dare to eat or drink anything while wearing $1170 pants. But these clothes are not meant for me. Everyone questioning “who would pay that much?” doesn’t understand the world of high fashion. Yes, Kanye’s clothing is overly expensive, but those high price tags are all apart of high fashion. Kanye West didn’t invent the idea of charging a lot for clothes.

Kanye has been talking and rapping about Margiela for years. Now, Kanye is using Margiela’s influence on his own clothing line. Here is a denim vest from Margiela’s current line:

Same shit Kanye is getting mocked and ridiculed for. It looks like dirty homeless people clothing. It’s a dirty denim vest that costs $750. If you read the description to that denim vest, they actually beat it with stones to make it look like that.

The original Zoolander (2001) poked fun at this style and they were not the first to parody it. This homeless look, was already a well worn out fashion cliche 15 years ago.

Neil Young inspired the youth in the 1970s to dress in beat up flannels. A style known as grunge. Distressed denim and acid-washed denim became a look in the 80s with rock music, specifically punk rockers. Those who wanted to be hip, started ripping their jeans and splattering them with bleach. Kurt Cobain brought back the flannel grunge style again in tail end of the 80s, with the addition of ripped jeans. Even outside of rock music, ‘grunge’ was a big part of fashion in the 90s. Ripped jeans became extremely popular by the late 90s. Stores would sell distressed and ripped jeans, and charge more for them than regular new-looking jeans. You could and still can spend hundreds of dollars on a pair of ripped/distressed jeans.

This style of ‘homeless chic’ has been around in the high fashion world for what feels like practically ever. Vivienne Westwood, another favorite fashion designer of Kanye, created a whole line of intentionally homeless looking clothing in 2010.

If you would like to read more about Vivienne Westwood and a little bit on the history of ‘homeless chic’, click here and here.

Anyone outside of the fashion world sees Kanye West’s homeless clothing as a meme-worthy joke and the thousands of dollars they cost, as even more hilarious. But to those inside the fashion industry, the Yeezy Season 1-3 clothing lines just seem tame and unoriginal. Kanye’s massive global reach, is just making all of this high fashion nonsense seen by everyone outside of the high fashion world. Not many kids/teens/moms/dads had ever seen a high fashion runway show before, then they were bombarded through the media with laughable pictures of Kanye West’s clothes. Most of the clothing shown on any given runway is high concept and will never be sold. Like a concept car at a car show. The runway is a place to play around, test things out, and showoff new ideas. Then based on how they work out and the reaction from the press/public, elements and pieces of these designs will be implemented in products that will be sold in stores.

I just find it amazing that everyone is shocked by Kanye West’s expensive ugly clothes. Its not like he’s the one that invented the idea of putting out homeless looking clothing and charging a lot for them. How long have ripped jeans been around for? Kanye didn’t invent that shit.

Kanye West did with clothes, what he’s been doing with his music. He takes ideas from everyone, puts them together, adds his own flair and calls it his own. Kanye’s 2015 single, All Day, has over 20 writers listed in the credits, along with a half dozen producers. This would seem impossible, but Kanye takes collaboration to another level. He likes surrounding himself with the the highest level of human beings, to create musical art. He almost needs input from everyone he deems worthy and any suggestion gets a credit. With over 20 writing credits on a song that doesn’t have many lyrics, you can imagine how small of an input some of these “writers” had on All Day. The credits of a Kanye song is like a who’s who in music business. Some of the names from the credits of All Day are: Kendrick Lamar, Q-Tip, Puff Daddy, and Sir Paul McCartney.

Kanye also has writers like CyHi the Prynce who go over every verse and punch them up. Same with beats. Kanye will have producers like Travi$ Scott go over every beat and perfect it. Not to mention his career-long relationship with producer/engineer Mike Dean. Mike Dean pretty much touches every single Kanye West song. Whether he is writing the music, playing guitar, playing keyboards, or producing. On top of that Mike Dean mixes and masters pretty much everything Kanye puts out.

Kanye frequently compares himself to Andy Warhol, Steve Jobs, and Leonardo da Vinci. These comparisons are quickly laughed off and angrily mocked by most that hear them. He compares himself to Andy Warhol and Steve Jobs because they are creators who had factories and teams of people who were able take ideas, create their own ideas, and bring it all to life.

Steve Jobs wasn’t the guy who wrote the code for the iPhone. He wasn’t the technology guy. Steve Wozniak and many others after, are the ones responsible for designing/programming Apple prodcuts. But Steve Jobs was the idea man, the dreamer, and also a fiercely competitive businessman who acted as the leader and face of the company.

Andy Warhol’s studio, The Factory, was full of musicians, artists, photographers, and creatives of all types. Warhol would take iconic images that already existed like pictures of Elvis or Marylin Monroe and then have workers make silkscreens and lithographs under his direction, in-order to create art prints.

Using a similar approach and philosophy, street artists in the 90s, like Banksy and Shepard Fairey, started making art prints and plastering them on buildings across the globe. The street art documentary, Exit Through the Gift Shop, shows an artist called Mr. Brainwash who took Warhol’s collaborative approach too far. Throughout the film, Mr. Brainwash doesn’t create anything of his own. Yet, he begins to become a famous “artist” by having workers slightly modify the art of others and then he just puts his name on it.

Andy Warhol would look through pictures and photos and find lets say a Marylin Monroe picture that sparked something in his mind. He would have ideas of what he wanted to do with this image. Then he would direct his workers to create different silkscreens and lithographs. He would have his workers try out lots of options and make several prints. Then he would choose which he likes best and that would be the final product.

Kanye West will be listening to music, often samples that are given to him, and hears let’s say Nina Simone’s Strange Fruit. Then he will be listening to beats given to him by producers, lets say TNGHT’s R U Ready. He will gather together singers, rappers, producers, and writers to blend these two songs together, create/sing melodies, come up with lyrics, and perfect it all. After countless different versions of the songs are created and mixed by producers and engineers, Kanye will choose which he likes best and what will be the final product.

Kanye West, Steve Jobs, and Andy Warhol are all curators of gifted minds, they are collectors of geniuses. When listening to a Kanye West song, using a Steve Jobs Apple device, or looking at an Andy Warhol print, it is unclear what parts these men played in creating them, who else was involved, and to what degree.

Artists throughout history have had assistants, apprentices, and other artists work for/with them. Michelangelo, most certainly, did not paint the Sistine Chapel entirely by himself.

Leonardo da Vinci was originally employed as a paid apprentice to the painter Andrea del Verrocchio. As a teenager, da Vinci worked for Verrocchio in his studio and da Vinci helped him paint some of Verrocchio’s most famous works. When da Vinci grew older, he too had apprentices who worked under him and helped him. Artists need to work around other artists.

Everyone finds out Kanye West works with all these writers/producers and they feel that means he doesn’t make or write any of his own shit. It doesn’t help when former Kanye co-writers like Consequence and Rhymefest, come out of the woodwork and claim they wrote all his lyrics. Kanye clearly writes enough of his lyrics. Does he have help? It shouldn’t matter as long as the music is good.

Almost all pop music has always been written by someone other than the performer. The rap game is infamously full of ghostwriters. Creating music, like most art forms, is a collaborative process. Dr. Dre didn’t write his own raps, its not like people don’t enjoy The Chronic 2001 because of that.