Kanye West talks all things fashion in a new interview with GQ creative director-at-large Jim Moore.
West, who wrote the foreword to Moore’s new book Hunks and Heroes: Four Decades of Fashion at GQ, said of his own style: “The outfit tells your story. It tells your personality and your character. There’s times where I’ll say, ‘I don’t feel Ye.'”
He added of having a super fashionable family: “I had an aunt that had Alzheimer’s. She had Alzheimer’s and she still showed up fresher than everybody else.”
“She couldn’t remember anything else, but her suit was so put together and tailored,” he explained. “So those types of things are in your DNA. It’s not a marketing scheme. It’s not a business opportunity. It is a life path and a life calling that we dedicate our life to imagery. To artistry. It’s in our soul. This is a life calling.”
West went on to tell the room at Moore’s book event, “Anybody here, like if you haven’t got your heart broken, you really don’t even deserve to be in this room right now. Like, you know, you look at that price tag, and you save up for it, and if you had enough to get it on layaway, and it’s not at the store by the time? And you have, like, ‘Whoa, this one’s on sale and in my size?’ moments, also.”
Moore also asks West about whether he thinks the suit and tie industry is dead, to which the rapper replied: “I think when we wear chains that are close to our neck, that’s like a tie. I got a chain on like that right now.”
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West added, “People are always going to want something tailored. We are attracted to tailoring, and tailoring promotes the attributes and it’s also forgiving. A suit can really help out.”
He continued, “I have a friend that was super, super, super skinny and you know, since he stopped doing a couple of, uh… recreational activities, he gained a little bit of weight. And he always still looks nice because he’ll have a jacket where it just falls and everything. I’m like, ‘You still pull it off.’ Stylish people, no matter what size they are, are going to pull it off and express that, and tailoring is super important.”
