At his Paris Fashion Week show this evening to debut his Yeezy SZN 9 collection, Kanye West made his fashion ambitions clear.
“Bernard Arnault is My New Drake,” West said before the show began, referring to the business and fashion mogul who sits as the CEO and chairman of LVMH, the luxury conglomerate that oversees more than 70 brands, including Louis Vuitton, Celine, Givenchy and Fendi.
In mentioning Drake, the famous rapper with whom West has had a rocky and competitive history, West appears to suggest he would like to go head-to-head with Arnault via his fashion and brand-building goals.
The event on Monday represented the brand’s first show since it introduced the Season 8 fall collection in 2020. The comeback occurred a month after Ye said in an interview with Bloomberg that it was time for him to “go it alone” and cut ties from the corporate entities linked to his Yeezy brand, namely Adidas and Gap.
In a series of now-deleted Instagram posts from last month, West expressed his disappointment with Adidas, which manufactures his Yeezy brand, for allegedly copying his designs, as well as not giving him enough control over his products and not opening up Yeezy stores.
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West also called out Gap and terminated his contract with the retailer last month. According to West, Gap failed to fulfill certain contractual obligations, such as distributing Yeezy product in stores by the second half of 2021 and creating Yeezy Gap-branded stores.
Kanye West confirmed that he would be debuting a new Yeezy SZN 9 collection for his brand during Paris Fashion Week one day before the event after hinting its unveiling one month earlier.
