Walter Van Beirendonckâ??s Neon Man

Taz Arnold, Walter Van Beirendonck, Kanye and Chris Julian. Photo by Ibn, Kanye’s barber. Courtesy Ibn’s blog, Ferrari Murakami.

The front row at Walter Van Beirendonck’s “GLOWALTERADIATE” show at Paris’ club Le Bataclan was looking a bit low-wattage on Sunday afternoon before the Kanyé contingent   (including Mr. Hudson of Mr. Hudson and the Library, which fronted KWs recent  “Glow in the Dark” tour) showed up—all seven of them. sandwiched inbetween his shoe design stint for his beloved Louis, West and his psychedelic varsity buddies have become brightly-dressed fixtures at the Paris shows and they’re blogging about them on Kanye’s site. They got an eyeful at WVB, whose bright collection in tubing made all the models look like neon signs. Undoubtedly the best here was the cowboy in the screaming orange suit (one of Walter’s favorite colors) and a tube torso necklace that stretched from neck to privates, an extra-large tube Stetson and Fall/Winter’s must-have shoe: a bright man pump with cone shape wooden heel. Over at Paris’s Polaris gallery  was “2357,” Walter’s first one-man show. The shows’ embroidered flags—there are 40 of them—commemorate the big moments in the Belgian designer’s career: “Beautify Big”; “The Bigger the Better”; etc. The idea for the show is that everything will be buried in a flesh-colored Walter-esque sarcophage, including a transparent plastic blow-up Walter and related accessories. They’ll be posthumously unearthed—to some fanfare, we anticipate—in 2357. One Walter doll, embroidered in red like an antique needlework sampler,  puts the man Van Beirendonck  into words: “Walter: Bear, Average height, some body hair, full beard, hung, big legs, big calves, long foreskin, top, the bigger the better.”

Bottom photo courtesy Walter Van Beirendonck.