On June 26, Kanye West took to Twitter to announce his multi-year Yeezy deal with Gap, using the hashtag #WESTDAYEVER with an apparent logo for the upcoming line set to debut in 2021.
The iconic partnership marks a full-circle moment for West, as one of his first introductions to the fashion world was working retail as a teen at a Gap store in Chicago. In a 2015 interview with The Cut, West seemed to have foreseen this collaboration when he said “One of my dreams was to be the head creative director of the Gap. I’d like to be the Steve Jobs of the Gap … [I want] full Hedi Slimane creative control of the Gap.”
The 43-year-old musician-turned-designer revealed his appointment to Mowalola Ogunlesi as the official design director of Yeezy Gap. Ogunlesi, who moved from Lagos, Nigeria to England at the age of 12, graduated from Central Saint Martins just three years ago. She has since gone on to dress style icons like Solange Knowles, and is most famously responsible for Naomi Campbell’s white halterneck gown, which featured a symbolic gunshot wound, that she wore this past London Fashion Week.
The 25-year-old British-Nigerian designer is known for her futuristic, sexy and out-of-the-box tailoring approach to fashion. Ogunlesi’s Spring/Sumer 2020 show, in collaboration with Fashion East, has become one of the most memorable collections in modern-day.
In January, Ogunlesi opened an exhibition at London’s NOW Gallery, called Silent Madness, that dove deep into the creative world of her brand. “Initially I was thinking about creating an installation that would mimic my own version of a renaissance painting. Something chaotic, sexy, and unapologetically black. My idea was always to show my world to the world — something we never usually see in museums or galleries,” she told Dazed in an interview back in November.
This past Father’s Day, the West family posed for an Instagram photo wearing custom designs by Ogunlesi. A foreshadow we should have seen coming.
Source: www.intheknow.com
