After a quiet week last week, by their standards, lol, the Kanye West and Julia Fox circus arrived in Paris on Sunday. This is Julia’s fourth tour stop since New Year’s, after meeting Ye in Miami, then stepping out with him in New York, followed by mayhem in Hollywood, and now she’s taking over Paris.
Paris Fashion Week is always a celebrity draw, and Ye himself has become a fashion institution – you may not agree with his views, and you may be tired of his drama, but you cannot deny the success he’s had in fashion; it’s fashion that made him a billionaire, not music. And where he once raged that the gatekeepers of French luxury fashion were keeping people like him out of the inner circle, that has demonstrably changed in a relatively short amount of time (the last decade) to the point where there’s almost no luxury fashion house that isn’t working with Black creatives and showcasing their product on Black artists. Kanye is a big reason for that adjustment.
So now that he’s brought Julia to Paris, she is the one they all want front row at the show. They were in matching denim Schiaparelli (complete with a cone bra on the jean jacket) yesterday at Kenzo. Later in the evening, she changed into patent leather to drop by the Rick Owens workshop. Today, back at Schiaparelli, they were the main event in coordinating leather, inciting what must have been a paparazzi frenzy. This is the show they were hoping to see. And, yes, of course, Kanye’s ego is no doubt living for the spectacle, but it wouldn’t be such a spectacle if Julia wasn’t so ready for it. Not just ready to serve looks but also with the commentary.
“I was just at the [Schiaparelli] showroom before coming here,” she told WWD [yesterday at Kenzo], adding that she also walked away with Schiaparelli creative director Daniel Roseberry’s personal pair of jeans.
“I’m actually wearing Daniel’s pants, the designer of Schiaparelli. I took the pants off of his body and he was very kind to let me wear them,” she said.”
As I’ve been saying, Ye is getting her in the door, no doubt, but once she’s in the door, Julia is in full control of constructing her own persona. She’s deliberately telling us that she’s not being led like a meek princess into these exclusive rooms and allowing sh-t to happen to her. Rather she’s the one making things happen, like taking the pants of the body of the designer and not giving them back.
It’s a continuation of what we’ve seen over the last three weeks – Julia talking about Julia and telling Julia’s story. We didn’t get a Fox News this week but there was a new episode of her podcast Forbidden Fruits during which she continued to address her own publicity and controversy, and not necessarily in a “thou doth protest too much” way either. Instead…
“It’s funny cause I’m getting all of this attention, but I really couldn’t care,” Fox explained. “People are like, ‘Oh, you’re only in it for the fame, you’re in it for the clout, you’re in it for the money.’ Honey, I’ve dated billionaires my entire adult life, let’s keep it real.”
Basically, if that’s the worst thing you can say about her, that she’s a golddigger, that she’s using him, her response isn’t exactly a denial. It’s more like, well, did you just show up? Because I’ve been here, I’ve been doing this. And?!
In a world where everyone is doing it for the clout, attention, for the followers and the likes and the reposts and the shares, how is that going to be the arrow that brings down Julia Fox, who was formed by this era? Is it real, is it fake, both scenarios are working for her right now.
