Yeezy Season 5 Recap: Well, That Was Interesting

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In the hours prior to Yeezy’s Season 5 runway show this afternoon — which was moved from 5 p.m. to 3 p.m. after CFDA President Steven Kolb expressed his dismay at West’s inconsiderate planning (Marchesa would be showing at 5) — details started to leak, likely by design.

First, people started posting and reposting images of the invitations, which came in the form of a vacuum-packed olive-toned crewneck sweatshirt and curiously indicated the show would be co-hosted by Drake (A hint at a potential collab?). It was also noted that Muslim model Halima Aden would be walking in the show.

Around noon, Sofia Richie and Luka Sabbat ‘grammed photos of themselves modeling for the Yeezy Season 5 zine. (It’s never just Yeezy, by the way. Or Yeezy Fall/Winter 2017. It’s Yeezy Season 5.)

Around 1 p.m., someone tweeted Kim’s outfit (very eggplant crayon).

Around 1:30, there were photos of people lining up outside the Yeezy venue in what appeared to be many a neutral fur.

And then, as the hour drew closer and guests started trickling in, people began posting the rules of the show, thus breaking them: “NO CELL PHONES. NO PHOTOS. NO VIDEO. ABSOLUTELY NO SOCIAL MEDIA,” small slips of paper read.

The hype was to be expected, especially after Kanye’s controversial Season 3 and Season 4 showings. Would Yeezy Season 5 dominate NYFW coverage again? That was our question last week; the few hours preceding the show already offered a resounding answer.

And then, at 3:10 p.m., this:

Yeezy Season 5 will not have a stream. No photos, phones, or social media allowed. Press has already been removed.

— dmfashionbook (@dmfashionbook) February 15, 2017

Whoa. Has West caught the anti-media bug from his friend Donald Trump? Maybe this just meant journalists or reporters deemed superfluous, though, because ELLE, Vogue, The Fader, Harper’s Bazaar and plenty of others appeared to remain present and, in almost every case, continued “live-blogging” the event. ELLE even published a recap of the show…before it happened. Pretty sure this is some flavor of media domination.

Around 3:25 p.m., the show started (hey! that’s kind of on-time) and more details emerged. One person tweeted that the opening track to the Yeezy Season 5 show was, “a trap-dub remix of J. Holiday’s ‘Bed.'” Hastily snapped iPhone photos of a screen poured into our newsfeeds. “The show starts with a voice-over and images being projected on a big black screen at the center of the runway,” reported Vogue. “New and notable is the introduction of denim, from shearling-lined jackets to high-waisted jeans.” This went on for ten minutes.

And then finally, real-life models walked the runway, based on a deluge of tweets, the clothes Kanye showed were a marked departure from the body stockings of Yeezy seasons past. In their place were looks one just might wear in public. As in: shirts and pants and shoes, all together and at the same time! The athletic influence continued, though — tracksuits, sweatshirts, baggy cargo pants and a new sneaker style that we’ll be able to get our hands on sometime in the next decade. Click through above to see the deets.

Six minutes later, it was over. “Kanye did not take a bow after the Yeezy Season 5 show. Instead Kim went backstage, and then told Anna Wintour to follow,” the New York Time’s Vanessa Friedman tweeted.

It’s easy to draw comparisons between today’s hullaballoo to that of prior seasons. The press circus, the internet’s rapt attention, the trending hashtags and searches. But it’s also easy to contrast: limited press, tight security, social media rules, no exclusive live stream on Tidal, no four-hour wait, no fainting models. Real clothes! And at the end of the show, West didn’t even show his face.

One thing is clear: West understands the power of hype, and now he’s doubling down with the help of an equally powerful force, mystery. The question is, after the hurricane finishes blowing through our newsfeeds, whether there will be anything left worth pondering.