clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

Fashion's Biggest Critic Slams Kanye's Designs

New, 1 comment
Photo: Kevin Mazur / Getty Images
Photo: Kevin Mazur / Getty Images

Racked is no longer publishing. Thank you to everyone who read our work over the years. The archives will remain available here; for new stories, head over to Vox.com, where our staff is covering consumer culture for The Goods by Vox. You can also see what we’re up to by signing up here.

"I don't read the reviews," Kanye West told the now-defunct Style.com after Yeezy Season 1. For his sake, we hope the rapper and designer maintains that policy this time around. Cathy Horyn, one of fashion's most respected critics, just penned a complete takedown of West and Yeezy Season 2 for The Cut.

Horyn wastes no time in laying waste to West's designer ambitions. The feature, titled "Kanye West Is Fooling the Fashion World," proceeds to crticize every bit of the collection. Here, the best lines:

  • "A great to-do is made over Kanye West, the Designer. Yesterday, I was embarrassed to find myself running up Tenth Avenue to his Yeezy show."
  • "Again, he showed hoodies, baggy pants, and beige under-things, as if time these past six months had stood still."
  • "A line of models appeared, followed by a second and a third, all of them in tights or leggings or stretch shorts and tops that looked a lot like Spanx."
  • "The military conceit was apt, given the mind-lock that Kanye has managed to put on the fashion world."

Then Horyn goes in for the haymaker.

  • "This second round of drab, broken-down basics proved he can't be taken seriously as a designer."

She goes on to say that anyone who continues to support West is a fool because "they wouldn't bother with this stuff if it were offered by an unknown."

Not content to stop there, Horyn has started retweeting bits of criticism sent her way on Twitter.

Horyn, one of fashion's most outspoken critics, is never afraid to ruffle a few feathers. She famously has been banned from shows by Hedi Slimane, Giorgio Armani, and Carolina Herrera because of her reviews. She also compared Oscar de la Renta to a hot dog, took a swipe at Alexander Wang, and called Tommy Hilfiger a hack. However, those designers have gone on to have pretty successful careers, and she recently apologized to Marc Jacobs for an unfavorable review she wrote 20 years ago. So, maybe there's hope for Kanye yet.