Three Australians turned Yeezy-branded trainers into Jewish skullcaps to send a message about the rapper’s anti-Semitism.
Sydney-based writer and artist Antoinette Barbouttis had previously been a big Kanye fan and had purchased “countless” items from the rapper including a dozen pairs of trainers.
However, after Kanye’s outbursts last year, she changed her mind on her the rapper.
“I was done. As soon as it was anti-Semitism, I thought, that’s next level-kind of dangerous, I’m not into that,” she told SBS.
Speaking to her Jewish filmmaker and writer friend John Safran, he suggested repurposing the items.
“I was planning to never wear them again, but then I went to John and I said, ‘you’re Jewish, you could tell me what I could do with this stuff’ … but then John came up with the idea of turning it into a yarmulke.”
The pair worked with costume tailor Chrissy Seo to make the yarmulkes in time for Safran to host a multicultural comedy gala last week.
“You’re not even breaking our spirit. We’re responding with some weird kind of Jewish self-deprecation by saying, no, we’re here, we’re not tucking in our Stars of David, just because there are spells of anti-Semitism and people are trying to intimidate us into hiding,” Safran said.
Read the article by Tom Fogden on B&T.