Kanye West’s Brief History Of Cross-Dressing

He’s always worn ladies’ things on occasion.

1. At the 12-12-12 Sandy relief concert Wednesday night, Kanye West performed wearing a leather a-line skirt over his leather pants.

To go with his manly gold statement bracelet and wrist warmers, of course. Anyway, after this Givenchy kilt appeared on stage, slung low on Kanye’s hips over a pair of slim-fitting leather trousers, it took on a life of its own — via a fake Twitter feed full of uninventive jokes about him raiding Kim Kardashian’s wardrobe, despite the fact that he wore it during the entire Watch the Throne tour starting last fall. Yet Kanye has been perfectly open about his attraction to women’s clothes in the past. In 2010 at New York Fashion Week, he told me he decided to wear a women’s blouse to sit front row at the Philip Lim show: “This is a women’s shirt [Phillip] had, and I just felt this color would be really, really nice on my skin.”

Image by Larry Busacca/Getty Images for Clear Channel / Getty Images

2. Kanye wearing ladies’ Phillip Lim:

Source: upscalehype.com

3. Kanye also titillated the fashion community when he wore this women’s Celine blouse in January.

With shiny mardi gras beads and bike chains around his neck.

4. Here’s how that blouse looked on the runway.

Source: style.com

5. And what of Kanye’s love of tunic tops?

A skirt is a natural evolution from a tunic top, which quite frankly just a mini-dress that would get harshly judged if worn without opaque pants underneath.

Image by Getty Images

6. And check this one out: leather pants with asymmetrical pockets, plus a gray dress layered under a hoodie under a fur coat.

At least I think that’s fur, though it might be a very robust velvet or something.

Image by Getty Images

7. This past year he also wore this dress-like get-up.

Unless it’s an apron?

(Also, Peggy Wang and I are unsure of whether or not these pants are odious waxed jeans or made of actual leather. Thoughts welcome in comments.)

Image by Antonio de Moraes Barros Filho/WireImage / Getty Images

8. And in 2011, he performed wearing the same leather skirt he wore on 12-12-12.

Now those definitely look like leather leggings. No wonder this man sweats so much on stage.

Image by Jason Squires/WireImage / Getty Images

Maybe what he needs are a lot more skirts and a ban on buying new leather pants.

Image by Larry Busacca / Getty Images