“I’m not a celebrity, I’m an activist,” reads the most immediately startling quote from Kanye West in his new profile in The New York Times' T Magazine. Writer John Caramanica followed West during NYC's fashion week, which hosted his Yeezy fashion show, and over the course of the feature, elicits some classic quotes from Mr. West. Read some excerpts below.
On wanting to democratize high-end fashion:
“I’m not a celebrity, I’m an activist,” he says. “The fact that when I see truth it’s really hard for me to sit back and just allow it to happen in front of me on my clock makes me, a lot of times, a bad celebrity.”
On his ego:
“I have this table in my new house,” West said, offering a parable. “They put this table in without asking. It was some weird nouveau riche marble table, and I hated it. But it was literally so heavy that it took a crane to move it. We would try to set up different things around it, but it never really worked.
“I realized that table was my ego. No matter what you put around it, under it, no matter who photographed it, the douchebaggery would always come through.”
On his fashion goals:
“I dreamed, since I was a little kid, of having my own store where I could curate every shoe, sweatshirt and color,” he said. “I have sketches of it. I cried over the idea of having my own store.”
On being hugged by Ralph Lauren:
“Do you know what he said when he did that? ‘This is my son,’ ” West said. “And I was thinking, ‘I knew it! I knew Ralph was my daddy!’ ”
