Kanye West’s fondness for masks is well known.
On Sunday, at Super Bowl LVIII, the Vultures rapper debuted a new addition to his collection, Alexander McQueen’s Dante mask from the designer’s Autumn/Winter 1996 collection.
But according to Byronesque Vintage and Simon Costin, the mask Ye wore was not the real piece and rather a recreation.
Ye has been donning masks for years, at least as far back as his Yeezus tour in 2014, where he wore several Maison Margiela masks. More recently, he has come to wear a trademark black mask often, which he wore when he and Kim Kardashian took North West and her friends to Nobu—the same mask he wore at Charlie Wilson’s Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony and when he verbally berated a TMZ reporter.
Earlier this month, he was spotted wearing the masks of horror movie legends Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers at the same time, while shooting a music video—and back in September, he was reportedly facing legal trouble in Italy for wearing a face mask in public that broke anti-terror and public order laws allegedly bar items that “hamper an individual’s identification” and are punishable by a fine of up to 2000 Euros.
As for this latest mask, it features a depiction of Jesus on the cross, which speaks to McQueen's fascination with religion. According to Another Magazine, he addressed it head-on at his Autumn/Winter 1996 show, which took place at Christ Church in Spitalfields, London, England on March 1, 1996.
The pieces in the show featured overt nods to religion, particularly with the Dante mask, which is adorned with a crucifix of Christ. The collection borrowed its name from the 14th-century Italian poet, Dante Alighieri, who wrote Divine Comedy in the 1300s, which, according to the outlet, “portrays an allegorical vision of the afterlife.”
