Kanye West and Julia Fox have only been dating for 25 days and yet it feels so, so much longer. From Miami, to Carbone, to Paris Fashion Week, the duo have seemingly modelled themselves on a pop cultural vision of power coupledom, thinking themselves the next Pamela and Tommy, Britney and Justin, or... Kim and Kanye? Things change so fast, and the eye so quickly adapts to what’s new, that it’s easy to forget just how little time they are alleged to have spent together, despite saturating the timeline with palpably awkward photoshoots and bizarre BTS videos.
The most cringe aspect of any celeb romance is that each party is encouraged to act as though the world is enthralled by their every move, like Megan Fox and Machine Gun Kelly. And these two are no different. Many of their appearances have resulted in some kind of commercial payoff and as a result, what started out as entertaining, with Fox giddily diarising their second date to a fashion magazine, began to feel a little strung out. Yet to label the whole thing as some kind of PR or financial stunt sounds too callous. As Fox told her podcast listeners, “Honey, I've dated billionaires my entire adult life, let's keep it real.” Yes, the public are certainly more astute than celebrities like West and Fox give them credit for but we are nonetheless enraptured by the perfomance of it all. Particularly the costuming.
Lest we feed the pseudo-intellectualisation of Kanye West, it is interesting to see the rapper mould Fox into a completely unrecognisable version of who she was just 25 days ago. If she was once a little pedestrian, a little ‘jeans a nice top’, she’s now full crack-baring leather chaps and Black Swan eyeliner. Of course, West knows the power that fashion has to legitimise celebrity. He did the same with Kim, dragging her out of Hervé Leger bodycons red soles flailing, not to mention that their subsequent divorce had seemingly been art directed by Demna Gvasalia himself. Whether Julia Fox is another prop to West, an extension of his paparazzi-charming latex masks, has yet to be seen, but her Schiaparelli, Rick Owens, and Balenciaga jaunts have proved some of the most eye-popping of Paris Fashion Week. Long live, erm, JuliYe.