The perpetual question of whether Kimye are "fashion" just got another strong nudge toward "yes": The "world's most talked-about couple" will grace the cover of Harper's Bazaar's next Icons issue.
For this annual special-edition issue, Carine Roitfeld, Bazaar's global fashion director, and the magazine's creative director, Stephen Gan, identify the most influential and zeitgeist-y figures in fashion. Lady Gaga and Katy Perry previously covered the issue, which comes out each September. "Kim and Kanye were the best example of music meeting fashion and meeting pop culture," Gan told WWD of why the Wests were chosen for the issue, which sports "In Love With Fashion" as a cover line. Fittingly, the latest Balmain campaign, in which Kanye stars, had the same intersectional theme.
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The cover and accompanying 17-page spread, which hits newsstands on August 16, were shot in Paris earlier this summer by Karl Lagerfeld. This isn't a total surprise: Kim took her millions of followers behind the scenes on Instagram and hinted that an Icons cover was in the works. Apparently, that cover shot, which shows Kim and Kanye pre-PDA, was West's idea, and — squeezing it in at the very end of the shoot — Gan, Roitfeld, and Lagerfeld made it work.
One detail that didn't make it into the teased images: the fact that the Wests are writhing around on Lagerfeld's own bedding. Roitfeld explained to WWD that the Kaiser simply didn't think the sheets called in for the shoot were up to snuff, so he decided to make it a BYOS. (Bring you own sheets, bien sûr.)
Kimye has been pretty much embraced by fashion's old guard over the past few years, despite skepticism from others in the industry as well as the public. Their joint, pre-marital Vogue cover from April 2014 was divisive, to say the least. But Roitfeld is expecting a split reaction. "They are a controversial couple and they will not please everyone, but we like them because they are different and represent positivity," Roitfeld told WWD. Plus, history shows that Kimye covers sell. West is a big Roitfeld fan, too: The rapper gave the famed French editor a very public shoutout during his The Life of Pablo concert/presentation in February.
On top of posing for some very meta pictures while checking their phones, the Wests answered a rapid-fire Q&A, in which they discussed fittings (Kim hates them), selfies (of course), and more. Next up, they'll fête their cover at Roitfeld's annual Icons gala at the Plaza Hotel in New York. Given that the Wests will also be in town for the Saint Pablo tour (and rumblings of Yeezy Season 4 are already afoot), we'll clearly be seeing quite a bit of the couple during New York Fashion Week, yet again.