The Dirty Lower Rungs of Modern Fashion

As the models trudged through the mud, they expressed the current era. The hip hop genre, spearheaded by the Balenciaga model rapper and fashion impresario Ye, is about displaying thousands of dollars worth of garments and accessories and sullying them. That is a metaphor for rap music as a whole.

The models all stomped through the muck in outlandish and striking and bulky clothes. Thin models sported plump bags. The man himself, Ye, walked through the mud, too. The idea was to “stay down to earth.”

This was once the man who described himself as the “Lebron of rhyme” and that “Ralph Lauren was boring before [he] wore him.” Now, a shell of his former self, he has stooped lower to the levels of the mire, literally.

The fashion show broadcast to the world that hip hop is still a low art form and that the reach across the globe is a reminder of its identity. With bruises on beautiful women, this is a deliberate and ugly attack on aesthetics. To showcase the deformities and wounds of models is almost like the cold sore in a painting of an attractive woman…almost.

In art, particularly the visual arts (paintings, sculpture) the power of an artist ought to be in her ability to present and express beauty and harmony and light.

While the fashion show isn’t art, it does portray some sensibilities of the form. With gorgeous women in gowns with bits of mud sloshing up on them, this makes for a disgusting look.

For the haute couture fashion line, they make millions in creating clothes for the wealthy, especially nouveau riche and the wannabe rich. Ye and company know better than to appeal to the gutter and the grimy with their vicious assortment of bags and security gear.

Like a CEO that smashes his face against the wall to feel the physical pain of doing business, this fashion show represents the deplorable state of modern day aesthetics and how people desperately require a proper philosophy.

All of the strength and brain power that was put into this show could have gone in the direction of grace, lightness, and might. They could have previewed clothing that struck the nerve without actually being dirty.

This is on par with the dismal display by Alexandria Ocasia-Cortez and her blood red splattered gown at the New York Met Gala in 2021. There is a direct link between the thinking behind her dress and this broadcast.

It is saying that humans are weak, and ugly, and mean. It is saying that we should live amongst trash and filth. Instead of championing the ideal, everyone from rappers to fashionistas all seek to be low, meek, and mild.

Closer to the earth should mean a better insight into this blue dot floating around the sun. It should mean that the world and everything in it should be explored and shaped in the thoughts of men and women. Closer to the earth ought to mean that self-esteem should not be about participation prizes but earned through grit and effort.

Stomping in mud puddles is not a sign of healthy, human behavior when gowns and coats on comely models are involved. The timing of this show coincides with the decline of Western civilization. As the rappers propel towards degeneration, so do the fields of fashion and style.

Ye ought to rediscover his Late Orchestration (2006) roots. He ought to be able to display how the gutter and the good can combine to be something gorgeous. As he rediscovers the melody in his music, he ought to also instruct models to walk on clean runways and unsullied skirts for the women and sharp trousers for the men. He should be able to offer the idea of making it out of the mud.