Kanye’s fashion ambition licensed younger rappers to flout gender dress boundaries

Evidence

Kanye’s forays into Parisian fashion cemented his role as hip-hop’s style innovator. He attended The Sartorialist’s 2012 menswear lunch in Florence, Italy, rubbing shoulders with industry insiders and declaring his intention to “invent a camera where the flash comes at the subject from the side, somehow.” His relentless passion gave younger rappers permission to push boundaries. Atlanta’s Young Thug became an icon for his avant-garde wardrobe, revealing, “Ninety percent of my clothes are women’s,” because “women’s clothes are [slimmer] than men’s clothes.” Meanwhile, A$AP Rocky partnered with designer Jeremy Scott in the early 2010s, a realization of his teenage dreams: “We used to save up money to buy his collections.” — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 405

Categorization

• XREF: Young Thug’s gender-fluid wardrobe connects to earlier chapter material on the erosion of gendered dress norms as part of the omnivore flattening.