Kanye West on Alexander McQueen, America's Place in Fashion, and More

West sat down for a fashion-focused interview with Jim Moore of 'GQ.'

October 29, 2019

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Kanye West suddenly had nothing to say regarding his recently preferred rhetoric of dangerous anti-abortion comments, continued Trump praise, prosperity gospel nonsense, and related bullshittery in a new interview with GQ's Jim Moore.

The discussion, conducted in celebration of the release of Moore's Hunks & Heroes book, instead saw West reflecting on his path to arguable fashion expertise and how the late Alexander McQueen inspired him while in the hospital.

"People used to look at me as like, Oh, he's just this rapper when we would be out in Paris," West said during an extended answer spurred by Moore's question about his initial draw to fashion. "But I've loved being in this community of people who appreciated the art, the suffering, the pain. You know, [Alexander] McQueen! When I was in the hospital, there were times where I'd wake up in the morning and I'd go to the office against all corporate odds just for McQueen. There would be days where I'd say, I'm doing this for McQueen right now. I am still living. Because he was killed by the corporations."

During the same series of comments, West shared his assessment on how as recently as "10 years ago" most people thought fashion innovation "only came from" the industry-favored city of Paris.

"We talk about fashion—there was a lot of discrimination that we dealt with when we'd go to the shows like 10 years ago and everyone thought that, you know, fashion only came from Paris, when it came from right here in America [too]," he said. "And actually now, as you can see, America pretty much runs it, because we are leading the conversation of culture. So we can look deep into our roots."

Another notable moment, I guess, is when West recalled how a Swatch founder comment inspired him to "corner" two former Apple collaborators about matters of circular design.

"The founder of Swatch said, 'A watch isn't a watch unless it's round,'" West told Moore. "So I cornered Jony Ive and Marc Newson at the Met Ball to accost them about the Apple Watch not being round. Because the Ikepod is my favorite watch and Marc Newson designed it and the band is the same band. And then Jony's sitting there like saying, 'You know it's square because of this reason and that reason and Marc Newson didn't call me back. I wanted to harass you.'"

Anyway, here's the full chat if you're feeling up for it.

In related news, West is indeed currently being championed by the far right for anti-abortion comments he gave during a recent Big Boy interview. Marvel at that fuckery right here.