NY Times fashion critic melts down over Kanye's 'White Lives Matter' shirt, says it could 'feed' 'violence'

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The latest "Fashion Review" from the New York Times trashed Kanye West’s new clothing line because it featured a shirt emblazoned with the slogan "White Lives Matter."

Written by fashion director and chief fashion critic for the Times, Vanessa Friedman, the piece, titled, "There Is No Excuse for Ye’s ‘White Lives Matter’ Shirt," tore into the rapper and style mogul for the politically incorrect message found on one of his latest style creations. 

Friedman began her piece with a blistering critique of West’s recent Paris Fashion Week showcase, dubbed "The YZY Experience."

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Candace Owens and Kanye West wearing controversial shirts from West's new fashion line.  (Credit: Candace Owens Twitter)

In general, she called it a "a chaotic mess of self-justification, confessional, bone-picking and messianic ambition, with a ‘White Lives Matter’ shot of shock and provocation that overshadowed the clothes on the runway."

Friedman mentioned how West depicted himself as "leader" of "the culture" during his presentation, saying, "we changed the look of fashion over the last 10 years. We are the streets. We are the culture." And when it comes to the culture, "I am Ye, and everyone knows I am the leader."

She then described the controversial t-shirt he wore while making his grandiose statement, writing, "Except this leader was wearing an oversize shirt with a photo of Pope John Paul II and the words ‘Seguiremos tu ejemplo’ (‘We will follow your example’) on the front, and ‘White Lives Matter’ on the back."

The fashion critic cited the Anti-Defamation League’s assessment of the slogan on the back of the shirt, telling readers it’s a "phrase that the Anti-Defamation League has called hate speech and attributed to white supremacists (including the Ku Klux Klan), who began using it in 2015 in response to the Black Lives Matter movement."

Friedman also noted that The Daily Wire commentator Candace Owens "was in the audience and wearing one, too."

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Jaden Smith, pictured arriving at the Kanye West Yeezy show in Paris, seemingly dissed the rapper after, saying he "had to dip" after the "White Lives Matter" controversy. (SplashNews.com)

The author claimed that West’s line has "potential, but the import got swamped by the shirt, what it symbolized, and how its endorsement by a figure such as Ye — even one with a track record of wearing MAGA hats and toying with Confederate imagery — could be used as a rallying cry by those who already buy into its message."

She cited other fashion critics dumping on West’s line because of the shirt. She quoted Gabriella Karefa-Johnson, the Vogue editor, who called the shirt "Indefensible behavior," and later declared, "there is no excuse, there is no art here." Friedman noted actor Will Smith’s son, "Jaden Smith, in the audience, walked out."

Friedman added, "The next day, at the Chanel show, Edward Enninful, the editor of British Vogue and the most powerful Black man in fashion media, called the shirt ‘inappropriate’ and ‘insensitive, given the state of the world.’"

The critic claimed it was the shirt that garnered all the attention for Kanye. "Indeed, in the end, it is the shirt out of context that made the news: not Ye’s theories about dress," she wrote.

Kanye West aka Ye is seen wearing a Balenciaga boxing mouthguard, outside Givenchy, during Paris Fashion Week - Womenswear Spring/Summer 2023 - Day Seven on October 02, 2022 in Paris, France.  (Photo by Edward Berthelot/GC Images via Getty Images)

She then expressed confusion as to what the statement on the shirt even said, writing, "As to why he did it, backstage Ye declined to provide any theoretical framework. ‘It says it all,’ he said, of the shirt. But what exactly does it say?"

Friedman gave her own hypotheses as to what it meant: "That he truly believes he can appropriate the language of racial violence with irony? That someday the power structure of Black and white will be reversed, and since he says this collection is the future, that’s the world he envisions? That Ye gets a kick out of pushing everyone’s buttons?"

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Accusing the slogan of fueling violence, she also asked, "That he wants to see how far he can go and doesn’t really care about, or think about, the collateral damage in the meantime (including to those children singing at his feet), despite the violence this could feed?"