REPORTING FROM NEW YORK — Any member of the fashion industry press attending and covering Kanye West's last-minute fashion show Wednesday — adjacent to the ruins of a smallpox hospital on the tip of Roosevelt Island — invested a minimum of five hours to do so.
We bring this up from the start because that time sink, in combination with the U.N.-worthy credential checkpoints and a start time that was delayed an hour-and-a-half made it nearly impossible for the collection to be worth the investment of time and energy it took to see it in person.
But here's the thing: The Yeezy Spring 2017 runway collection, the fourth between West and Adidas, served up a decent range of athleisurely pieces for women that reflected a progression from Season 1 (we weren't in town to take in Seasons 2 and 3).
The unmistakable star of the runway collection, presented outside in the Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park, was the high-heeled, thigh-high boot — served up in different color and fabric combinations, including white leather and see-through plastic. The clothes, rooted in a muted color palette of beige, black and gray with the occasional pop of camouflage, were either of the body-hugging second-skin variety or voluminous, drapey and frequently hooded outerwear.