It’s now been a year since Adidas ended their partnership with Kanye West, also known as Ye. A nearly decade long collaboration which helped the brand get back on the fashion stage was marked with consistent growth, and they took their decision to end this deal very seriously; in fact, many of us thought they would never commit to it because of how quiet they kept while Kanye West spurred antisemitism online.
Now the infamous character - Ye; is back with another - to - be - controversial - move, naming Gosha Rubchinskiy, a Russian designer from 2015s, head of design at Yeezy.
In case any of our readers have forgotten, a few years ago Rubchinskiy made headlines across the globe with multiple minors coming forward to report suspicious behavior, where the designer himself was asking them for nudes. He later tried to defend his actions by saying that his brand used Instagram to hire models for their shows since they preferred the street male look and they wanted more natural people rather than runway models, but amongst the screenshotted DMs, you could see the models stating their age, only for the designer to disregard and continue requesting for naked photos of them. The news quickly caught fire, and the Gosha Rubchinskiy brand died literally overnight.
Playing devils advocate, using the information that we have, we could support either side - on one side, Russia’s age of consent is 16 so practically it is perfectly legal, although morally messed up; but on the other hand, the designer did specifically ask if parents were around, and asking one of the minors to go to the bathroom, so he is alone. Which is severely messed up.
Some Ye supporters are now trying to defend Gosha, by stating the legal age along with how designers should be given a second chance. From my point of view, and from fashion history, giving designers a second chance never ends in a different result, due to ego, selfishness and politics within the industry.
