Fashion editors turn on Kanye West’s Paris show

THE FUR has been flying both on and off the catwalk after Kanye West unveiled his debut collection during one of the prime slots at Paris fashion week. At least two fashion editors told the US rapper and music producer to "stick to his day job" after he launched his DW by Kanye West Spring/Summer 2012 collection on Saturday night.

West's fashion credentials are limited to a spell as a Fendi intern, hours spent on the front row of catwalk shows and name-dropping Celine designer Phoebe Philo in his 2010 song Dark Fantasy.

But such concerns were not enough to stop him hiring out the grand library of the Lycée Henri IV on the Rive Gauche and enlisting a celebrity-filled front row - including US Vogue editor Anna Wintour, designers Azzedine Alaia and Olivier Theyskens and actors-turned-designers Lindsay Lohan and the Olsen twins - and the result was a slating by sections of the fashion press.

Few journalists were enthusiastic about West's collection, which featured slinky dresses, tight leather trousers and somewhat inexplicably, for a summer collection, an abundance of fur. "Hooker dressing" was how the Daily Telegraph fashion editor Lisa Armstrong summed up West's designs, in a blog entitled 'Stick to the day job, Kanye West'.

In pictures: Paris Fashion Week

"Does the world really need another slashed bandage dress that requires a woman to go commando and depilate every last centimetre of her body or for that matter another pair of Balmain-esque spray-on shiny jeans?" she asked.

In an article headlined 'Good thing Kanye West has a day job' the Wall Street Journal's Christina Binkley described the collection as "Herve Leger meets Donald Trump". Eric Wilson in the New York Times added: "There was one good-looking pair of colour-blocked pants in blue and coral, but it was obvious that most of the clothes suffered from a poor fit."

One person sticking up for West was the Guardian fashion editor Jess Cartner-Morley who said the collection reminded her of early Stella McCartney: "That kind of bumptuous, street bombast but with a tailored edge".

Cartner-Morley's praise was tempered, however. While she thought West's debut collection was "quite good, actually", it was impossible to view it as a debut collection. Unlike fellow singer-turned-designer Victoria Beckham, who launched her first collections to a handful of editors in a hotel room, West had staged his show in competition with the top names of Paris fashion week. "Compared to that, it just didn't cut the mustard. It was a little overwrought: great swags of fur on a summer collection is a bit P Diddy."

West, who appeared at the end of his show dressed in a modest T-shirt and jeans, will no doubt be disappointed that the fashion world has failed to return the love he has shown it. Backstage, West told reporters that he had been helped by the Louis Vuitton menswear designer Kim Jones, by the British designer Louise Goldin and by Central Saint Martins head Louise Wilson.

"The biggest conversation I hope I can end tonight is the whole 'celebrity designer' thing," he told Associated Press. "That's the biggest hurdle when you want to get amazing people to work for you." ·