The G-List is TheUrbanDaily.com’s annual celebration of 40 influential men from various walks of life who define what it means to be a trendsetter with style in their field.
Name: Kanye West
From: Chicago
Occupation: Rapper/Producer/Designer/Artist
Affiliations: Roc-A-Fella & G.O.O.D. Music
When it comes to style, there’s no other hip-hop celebrity that does it quite like Kanye West. Since he first stepped on the scene, he created his own lane in the fashion world by merging high-end designer items with symbols of conscious hip-hop, i.e. the “Louis Vuitton backpack.”
Kanye West Fashion Show Debuts During Paris Fashion Week [PHOTOS]
Throughout his career, Kanye West has continuously made big fashion statements, dropping name-brand designers on records and taking clothing risks that are more runway model than rapper. “Kanye is the dude that will rock the leather kilt and the leather pants,” says celebrity stylist Mike B. “It really comes from Irish culture. Only Kanye can do something like that.”
Even before Kanye had become the multi-platinum Grammy-winning artist he is today, he was making the fashion world pay attention. The former art student even uses his own blog to exercise his artistic vision, which leans less towards music and more towards his love and passion for style.
This past October, the G.O.O.D. Music head debuted his own womenswear collection, DW by Kanye West,” at Paris Fashion Week in front of the likes of people like Vogue’s Anna Wintour and designers Riccardo Tisci and Alexander Wang. The line was inspired by his mother Donda West, who passed away in 2007.
Mike B. recalls one of his first meetings with Kanye, not surprisingly at a Louis Vuitton store. “Back in 2003, I was just beginning to style Chris Brown, Pitbull and Dwayne Wade. I was on my way to meet [Kanye] at the Bal Harbour Mall. I see all this commotion, so I’m thinking that Puff was over there. They were telling people to leave the store. They shut it down because Kanye had requested to be in the store by himself,” he remembers.
The self-proclaimed Louis Vuitton blew up about six months later and has been shopping so much since then, that he “could speak Italian.”
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