Inside Kanye West’s Yeezy Season 4 Takeover Of Roosevelt Island

The invitation to Kanye West’s Yeezy Season 4 presentation for Adidas arrived in the early hours of Wednesday, September 7th – the same day as the show. Many fashion insiders thought they might have been snubbed this season, and some speculated that West would be showing sans live audience for virtual viewers only. We were all wrong, and awoke yesterday morning to find shadowy details in our inboxes. We were to meet at a pre-determined check point in Chelsea, where we would board a bus with our colleagues to an undisclosed location. It was then revealed just 3 hours before the presentation’s 3 PM start time that we would be trekking to Roosevelt Island’s Four Freedoms Park. While it seemed like many hoops to jump through, this secrecy went a long way in removing the spectacle of the Yeezy experience. We baked in the sun awaiting entry as many bemoaned West’s venue choice, though it turned out to be a tactful one as hypebeasts and gawkers had all but disappeared. Sure, there was something troubling about seeing fashion veterans like The International Herald Tribune’s Suzy Menkes and InStyle’s new editor-in-chief Laura Brown being pushed back by a set of burly security guards to allow smooth entrance for rappers like Desiigner and 2 Chainz, but there is a reason we all showed up, and that’s for the spectacle of it all. This season, Kanye took a step toward changing that. Read more at Observer.