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Kanye West Kicks Out the Press at Yeezy Season 5 New York Fashion Week Show

Kanye West in NYC. (Photo: AKM-GSI)
Kanye West in NYC. (Photo: AKM-GSI)

Kanye West just can’t seem to do anything without creating drama.

This afternoon marks the official launch of Yeezy Season 5 at New York Fashion Week, West’s fashion collaboration with Adidas, and not one moment of the show has gone by without some sort of controversy. While there is some good news coming out of the launch — there are rumors West may be releasing a collaboration with Drake, and he hired Halima Aden, a Hijab-wearing model, to walk in his show — but that seems to be overshadowed by the chaos that has ensued surrounding the show itself.

The latest is that West’s security ejected numerous credentialed press from the show, which likely won’t go over well with media who were already calling for a boycott of the event. According to the Cut, the insanity of the Yeezy Season 4 launch — which was dramatically late and had models fainting outside from the heat — left such a sour taste in fashion journalists’ mouths that many of them vowed not to attend the reveal of the rapper’s newest line.

Related: Yeezy for Kids?

Shortly before the press was removed, there were rumblings on social media that West was disallowing any photos, videos, or social media posts.

This might also explain why Tidal wasn’t live-streaming the event for the third season in a row; however, according to the Fader, West’s friends — including West-Kardashian family photographer Eli Russell Linnetz — were allowed to live-stream the event and post pictures to social media.

So, apparently, not all members of the press were kicked out. New York Times fashion critic Vanessa Friedman, who must be considered a personal friend of West, tweeted about the show and shared a few videos:

A few other reporters who made it into the show also posted clips of some of Yeezy’s looks:

Social media reactions to the show were mixed:

But that wasn’t the only drama following the Yeezy Season 5 show. According to XXL, West also angered the CFDA by not going through proper channels to book the show, which resulted in a conflict when the original start time collided with Marchesa (who, as Oscars fashionistas know, is the label run by Georgina Chapman, wife of Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein). West reached out to the CFDA to rectify the situation and reschedule, but the situation didn’t sit well with CFDA president and CEO Stephen Kolb.

“Once again, CFDA was not approached or consulted about the possibility of Kanye West showing on the official New York Fashion Week schedule,” Kolb told WWD. “As the scheduler of the week, the CFDA works with more than 300 brands to identify appropriate times for them to show their collections and avoid scheduling conflicts. Not going through the proper channels is disruptive to the whole week and unfair to designers who have secured spots through the formal procedure.”

Kolb added, “This bad behavior is not acceptable to the CFDA and should not be tolerated by the industry. Because of this, the CFDA will not list Kanye West on the official schedule. However, the CFDA is more than willing to work with Kanye on securing an available time slot.”

Related: Kanye West Deletes All His Trump Tweets

Leading up to the show, there was a lot of commentary about West’s mental health — namely, that he’s been in much better shape. However, his producer and friend Malik Yusef told Popsugar at the Grammys that the rapper has suffered some memory loss. It was rumored that West was skipping the music event as protest in honor of Frank Ocean, whose latest album wasn’t nominated for an award.

But as Kris Jenner told E! while serving as one of the network’s Grammy red carpet correspondents, “There’s been a rumor that he’s not coming [to the Grammys] for various reasons, but the truth is he’s got a big fashion show in New York because it’s New York Fashion Week right now. And my entire family is back there. Kim [Kardashian] and some of the kids — Khloé [Kardashian] — are on their way tomorrow. And Kendall [Jenner] and Kylie [Jenner] and a few others are there I can’t even count anymore.” She continued, “Kanye’s back in New York City preparing for his big fashion show this week. He’s got a lot of work to do. He wishes he could be here.”

Yeezy Season 5 marks West’s first official public appearance since he canceled his “Saint Pablo” tour and was treated for exhaustion.


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