{"id":11681,"date":"2021-01-27T04:24:06","date_gmt":"2021-01-26T17:24:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/?post_type=articles&p=184700"},"modified":"2021-02-04T05:29:41","modified_gmt":"2021-02-04T05:29:41","slug":"how-kimye-changed-fashion-forever","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/articles\/how-kimye-changed-fashion-forever\/","title":{"rendered":"How Kimye Changed Fashion Forever"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Compilation: Kimberlee Kessler. (Photo Credits: @kimkardashian \/ Instagram & Getty images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Reports of Kim Kardashian and Kanye West\u2019s impending divorce<\/a> were put on hold earlier this month, as the US grappled with a profound political crisis<\/a> (memes portraying a furious Kris Jenner, whose carefully orchestrated plan for the divorce reveal had been undermined by MAGA insurgents at the Capitol, circulated wildly<\/a>). According to new reports<\/a>, the couple is putting an official announcement on hold for now, saving the details of the breakdown of their marriage for the upcoming final season of Keeping Up With The Kardashians<\/em> (a surreal sentence if we ever wrote one), which won\u2019t air until September. Regardless, the couple\u2014who married in 2014 and share four children\u2014seem to be living separately, meaning the defining celebrity partnership of our era may soon come to an end.<\/p>\n

The union of Kim Kardashian and Kanye West<\/a> always represented something greater than the sum of its parts, a fact both parties seemed acutely aware of. Much like how the romantic partnering of Jay-Z and Beyonc\u00e9 doubled as a savvy branding exercise (he brought her prestige and credibility, she brought him mainstream appeal), Kim and Kanye\u2019s relationship was fortuitously timed and beneficial for both parties. In 2012, when the pair got together, Kardashian was already one of the most famous women in the world, but was still circulating the fringes of the fashion industry, failing, in her bodycon and fur gilets, to penetrate its high walls. West, fresh off the back of the release of his decade-defining record, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy<\/em>, was considered one of the most important recording artists in the world, but rap, at the time, didn’t have the mass cultural appeal it does today. Their love story\u2014West had reportedly been in love with Kardashian for years\u2014was also an undeniable masterclass in the art of aligning star power.<\/p>\n

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NEW YORK, NEW YORK – MAY 06: Kim Kardashian West and Kanye West attend The 2019 Met Gala Celebrating Camp: Notes on Fashion at Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 06, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by Dia Dipasupil\/FilmMagic)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Soon after the pair got together, West, a longtime disciple of the world of high fashion (he interned at Fendi in 2009), famously took it upon himself<\/a> to overhaul his future wife\u2019s style. Kim swapped her favored ripped jeans and tight pencil skirts for tonal separates and sharp tailoring and brand,certainly swayed by the potential access to West that slowly began to embrace her. Before 2011, the Kardashian sisters milled around Bryant Park, trying to get photographed at New York Fashion Week. By 2015, the newly-married Kim was perched beside Anna Wintour front row, with baby North West nestled in her lap.<\/p>\n

West\u2019s sartorial intervention is undoubtedly what caught the attention of French fashion doyenne, Carine Roitfeld<\/a>, who was among the first major industry figures to back Kardashian, shooting her for the cover<\/a> of her biannual fashion tome CR Fashion Book<\/em> back in 2013. A year later, American Vogue<\/em> came knocking, and the resulting cover<\/a>\u2014in which Kim and Kanye posed in wedding attire\u2014continues to be one of the most polarizing in the magazine\u2019s history. That cover represented a fundamental shift in the relationship between pop culture and high fashion. A few years earlier, it would have been unimaginable that a reality TV star could grace the pages of a glossy fashion magazine. The future reign of this generation\u2019s supermodels\u2014Kim\u2019s sister Kendall Jenner, and her Real Housewives of Beverly Hills <\/em>alum girlfriends, Gigi and Bella Hadid\u2014would arguably never have happened if it weren’t for the initial legwork put in by Kardashian and West.<\/p>\n

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PARIS, FRANCE – SEPTEMBER 29: Kim Kardashian, Kourtney Kardashian, Kris Jenner and Corey Gamble attend the Balmain show as part of the Paris Fashion Week Womenswear Spring\/Summer 2017 on September 29, 2016 in Paris, France. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As Kim ascended the ranks of the fashion world, she took the rest of her family with her. Kendall became the highest-earning supermodel of our era<\/a>, gracing the runway for Chanel, Versace, Burberry, and Fendi. The five sisters posed for a Calvin Klein campaign<\/a>, Kourtney has sat front row at Haider Ackermann and Balmain, and Kylie Jenner is a longtime friend and collaborator of Alexander Wang<\/a>. All the Kardashian sisters, bar Khlo\u00e9, have graced the cover of Vogue,<\/em> and Caitlin Jenner famously appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair<\/em> <\/a>in a custom Versace bodice in 2015. Where once the notoriously exclusive fashion world looked down its nose at the world of mass entertainment, it now accepted it with seemingly open arms.<\/p>\n

The arrival of the Kardashians on the fashion scene spoke to bigger cultural questions, too. Kim has had her fair share of warranted criticism<\/a> for perpetuating unrealistic body standards, but there\u2019s no denying that her so-called \u2018curvy\u2019 figure has drastically altered our generation\u2019s beauty ideal. It certainly didn\u2019t spearhead our current body acceptance movement, but it forced the fashion world\u2014obsessed with a certain kind of lanky, adolescent androgyny\u2014to consider the appeal of a different type of body. Kim\u2019s masterful command of the paparazzi, no doubt learned from the years she spent watching former BFF, Paris Hilton, had a sprawling effect on the fast fashion industry, too. Kardashian quickly became aware that appearing in a constant barrage of different outfits was the key to remaining relevant (even during a pandemic she\u2019s worn a rotation<\/a> of custom designer looks<\/a>, despite being confined to her house)\u2014the trickle-down effect of these chameleon-like transformations was huge. The Kardashians’ outfits are often being copied and sold by hyper fast-fashion retailers within hours<\/a> of their wearing them.<\/p>\n

The impacts this hyper-manic consumption has had on the environment can\u2019t be overstated\u2014retailers like Pretty Little Thing, Fashion Nova, Nasty Gal, and Boohoo (all diehard adherents to the Kardashian aesthetic) contribute to a fashion industry that emits more carbon than international flights and maritime shipping combined<\/a>. Kim\u2019s high fashion glow-up coincided with the explosion of super-fast fashion, catering to the millions of young women desperate to recreate the entire family\u2019s sex appeal-laden look. It’s no surprise that the Kardashians parlayed that influence into fashion ventures of their own: Skims, the shapewear brand Kim Kardashian launched in 2019<\/a>, has reportedly sold more than three million units while Good American, the size-inclusive denim brand Khlo\u00e9 Kardashian runs with Emma Grede, sold $1 million worth of stock<\/a> within 24 hours of launching.<\/p>\n

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A post shared by Kim Kardashian West (@kimkardashian)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n