If 2014 has taught us anything, in the realm of music and fashion, it’s that there’s no such thing as overexposure. Just look to the hat-clad face of the year, Pharrell Williams, who has made headlines every week since last February’s Grammys and has been rewarded for it with countless collaboration opportunities, along with nominations for next year’s awards ceremony. Or, in another way, take Rihanna: her bare-all CFDA dress and #FreetheNipple campaign—and the fact that she’s managed to stay a trending topic all year even while she didn’t even release an album.
One more example: Kimye, #WORLDSMOSTTALKEDABOUTCOUPLE. That theme also happens to be the biggest takeaway from this week’s music and fashion news.
KANYE WEST AND KIM KARDASHIAN SCORE A BALMAIN CAMPAIGN
Did you honestly think Kanye was going to chill on fashion for a minute to give us his new album? THE MAN IS JUST GETTING STARTED!!!!!!!! If the video for “Bound 2” was a fashion shoot, it’d look like his new campaign for Balmain, co-starring his wife Kim. They’re making out in a vehicle—his black matte Lamborghini—they’re unphased by the cameras, and you want to think they’re in on the joke. Or course, by now seeing Kanye and Kim in a high-fashion setting has lost its shock. This year, they covered Vogue, sat front row at fashion week with North, and attended Givenchy head Riccardo Tisci’s ridiculously star-filled birthday party, among other things. It also makes sense that Balmain’s head Oliver Rousteing would tap Kimye for an ad series because, hello, how else are you going to one-up your last campaign when its star was Rihanna?
ELEVENPARIS TAPS SOLANGE AND CHRISTOPHER OWENSFor spring, Elevenparis was tasked with a similar challenge of one-upping their last campaign that starred Wiz Khalifa and Kate Moss. This time they went with musician models who have a little more modeling experience than Wiz: Solange and the ex-Girls frontman Christopher Owens, whose resumé includes ads for Saint Laurent and H&M. The result is surprisingly low-key. Solange gives out off-duty Diana Ross vibes in shorts and busy tops, meanwhile Christopher Owens channels an androgynous long-haired Hunter S. Thompson—which is to say, the campaign is very much about hair. Someone should have called HAIM.
DRAKE DISMISSES THE TORONTO RAPTORS' NEW LOGO, HAS A SPORTS COLLABORATION ON THE WAYDrake, the lint-rolling, Degrassi jokes-dropping global ambassador of the Toronto Raptors, has had a rollercoaster of a past week or so. First, he went classic Drake at “Drake Night,” pretending to be a sports commentator, kidding around with the players, and gifting the crowd with custom OVO Raptors tees. Then several days later, Drake distanced himself from his team when their terrible redesign dropped—a budget version of the Brooklyn Nets’ logo that inexplicably came out in the middle of the season. The Drake-sized drama started when sports writer Cathal Kelly tweeted about “The Drake-inspired Raptors redesign.” Drizzy replied back, side-eye and all, saying, “Actually this redesign was executed without me.” Drake can’t be that upset over the redesign though because he let everyone know that he still has a collaboration on the way with Mitchell & Ness that’s presumably Raptors merch. As for what it will look like? I’d bet on something similarly nostalgic to the OVO Raptors tees.Marissa G. Muller is a music and fashion and Kimye expert. Follow her on Twitter!
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