Kanye West has enlisted friend and Balenciaga artistic director Demna Gvasalia to act as creative director of a forthcoming release event for his new album, “Donda.”
Gvasalia will oversee visuals and other creative elements for the event, scheduled for Thursday at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta — the same venue where West hosted an album listening party on July 22 and is rumored to have been living in ever since. It is unknown if Gvasalia is also present in the stadium.
The album, first revealed for release on July 23 and now slated for Aug. 6, is named after the rapper and creative’s late mother Donda West, who died from complications following plastic surgery procedures in 2007. Donda is also the name of West’s long-running creative studio entity, which in the past has employed designers like Virgil Abloh and Heron Preston.
West recently traveled to Paris to support Gvasalia from the front row of his first haute couture show for Balenciaga, which marked a long-awaited revival of the fashion house’s couture collection. The two are longtime friends, with Gvasalia spotted in the crowd at West’s 2016 Madison Square Garden listening party for the “Life of Pablo” album, which also served as a fashion show for Yeezy’s third season.
Throughout the lead-up to the release of “Donda,” West has been spotted in various iterations of the down coat he has designed in collaboration with the Gap.
Tickets for the event, which go on sale at 10 a.m. on Monday, will be priced from $30 to $75. Last week’s sold-out listening event drew an estimated 40,000-plus fans. It was also available for viewing through an Apple Music livestream.
By: msidell
