Designers Kanye West Loves Who You Should Know

Kanye has somewhat of an obsession with the 19th century French designer Hermés, a man who made the color orange as famous as Tiffany blue. Kanye owns tableware by the brand, and in an interview with W Magazine this June, the rapper said, "Visiting my mind is like visiting the Hermès factory. Shit is real. You're not going to find a chink. It's 100,000 percent Jimi Hendrix." When you compare your own mind to a designer's factory, that's true dedication.

Kanye didn't think his Paris home was ready for the arrival of his daughter North, so he asked Oana Stanescu, one of the directors at the architectural firm Family, to help him baby-proof it. Stanescu has formed a close bond with Yeezy lately, accompanying him on various outings to meet prominent designers, architects, and artists who have helped shape Kanye's aesthetic vision. Stanescu is now helping Kanye and Kim redesign their LA home as well. Besides her work with the rapper, Stanescu is currently involved in the +Pool project in New York, a Kickstarter-backed endeavor that involves installing a cross-shaped floating swimming pool in the East River.

With such a focus on design, Kanye obviously goes big when it comes to furniture. The rapper owns a gigantic Living Divani sofa, which runs from $3,000 a pop (on the cheaper side), designed by Piero Lissoni. Lissoni is a highly sought after Italian architect and designer who has created pieces for many notable design companies. True to Kanye's taste, he has a very minimalist approach.

Frances Palmer, a middle-aged art historian who enjoys pottery, gardening, and printmaking, is not someone you would expect Kanye to endorse, but the rapper is a huge fan of her beautiful ceramics, which have been featured in various home and design magazines. Kanye and Kim own a set of handmade Frances Palmer ceramic mugs, and Kanye claims that these mugs are among his favorite pieces in his apartment.

Belgian interior designer and antique master, Axel Vervoordt, met with Kanye and Oana Stanescu on one of their outings. Vervoordt, who has been influencing the design world since 1968, has been invited into Kanye's apartment to give his thoughts on the home's design.

Iy makes sense that Kanye would be drawn to Dirand's minimalist style, and the French architect's work has influenced Kanye's New York home. Oana Stanescu told W Magazine about how she introduced Kanye to many designers. "Right now Kanye is just sponging things up, observing how these people work," she said. "He's going to take an idea from Joseph and one from Tristan and make it his own."

While many designers have crossed the threshold into Kanye's Manhattan loft, the geometrical shapes, white tones, and minimal design comes directly from modern masters like Mies van der Rohe. This 1930s architect made some of the most important advances in modern architecture with works like the Farnsworth House and the Barcelona Pavilion. In a recent interview with W Magazine, Kanye was caught googling images of Mies' work for inspiration.

Zaha Hadid seems to be growing an architectural empire. From her massive constructions that look like space stations of the future, like her New York apartment complex lined up for construction on the High Line, to her impressive collaborations, like her design for Stuart Weitzman stores, Hadid seems to have a hand in most major architectural projects today. She even bought the London Design Museum for just over $12 million. Kanye introduced us to this design powerhouse back in the day on his old blog with posts about Hadid's work at the MAXXI National Museum of the XXI Century Arts, the Nordpark Cable Railway, and the JS Bach Chamber Music Hall.

Not only is Marc Newson one of the most successful industrial designers right now, but his yacht got a Twitter shout out from Kanye. The London-based designer covers everything from aircraft design to product design to furniture, jewelry, and clothing. Newson's distinct design style is called biomorphism, which uses complex organic structures straight from nature and integrates them into the art. The result is usually a layered piece with no hard edges.

David Benjamin is the director of the Living Architecture Lab at Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture. Kanye and Benjamin are working on a confidential project that involves a new 3D entertainment experience. We haven't heard anything about the project since May, but with Kanye and Benjamin, it's bound to be impressive.

Kanye West owns several pieces from Dutch designer Maarten Baas' Smoke furniture line. When the two met at an event hosted by Dezeen, Baas was flattered, and he didn't know that Kanye owned some of his designs. Baas' Smoke line is already in museums and is well known internationally for being among the best contemporary furniture lines. It features furniture made from burned wood, hence the name Smoke.

These Brazilian brothers use ordinary materials, sometimes even trash, to make amazing furniture. Their work has strong motifs of recycling, sustainability, and reuse. Yeezy bought quite a lot of this "trash" for his new minimalist apartment. Kanye claims that when the architect who designed his NYC loft, Claudio Silvestrin, learns about the eccentric furniture, "He'll freak."

Yves Béhar knows his bling. Using Swarovski crystals, he makes some of the most stunning chandeliers around, including one for Kanye's apartment. Beyond being an incredible designer, Béhar is also an entrepreneur and sustainability advocate. He started his own design firm, Fuseproject. Béhar actively tries to bring together modern commercialization and positive social impact.

Silvestrin is an Italian architect who is known for being one of the masters of contemporary minimalism. He is also the designer behind Yeezy's minimalist New York home that was made back in 2007. Silvestrin's designs highlight the beautiful simplicity of geometric forms.

Shohei Shigematsu is a partner at the OMA, a prestigious architectural firm founded in 1975 by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas and Greek architect Elia Zenghelis. And Shigematsu is no less impressive than the founders of his company. He has been in charge of the North American division of OMA since 2006. He oversaw the construction of many important buildings such as Milstein Hall at Cornell University and the National Beaux Arts museum in Quebec. He also made the seven screen theater where Kanye debuted his short film.

British graphic designer Peter Saville is famous for designing record sleeves for bands like Joy Division, New Order, and Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. Kanye recently called on Saville to design a new visual identity for him. According to Kanye's demands, the rapper wants a logo that is just as iconic as Yves Saint Laurent's "YSL" logo.

Peter Saville once said of Kanye, "He'd get Le Corbusier to do a building for him if he could." And from what we know of Kanye's taste for the best in high design, Saville is probably right. Le Corbusier is the grandfather of modern architecture, and his influence has stretched all the way into the rap world. In a New York Times interview this year, Kanye named Le Corbusier's lamp as the inspiration for Yeezus. Kanye has even taken a trip to see Le Corbusier's iconic Villa Savoye in France, which was one of the main inspirations for his minimalist home in New York.

Es Devlin is Ye's go-to set designer, and if you see the work she's done for him in the past, you completely understand why. Her creative vision helped make Kanye West's Watch the Throne tour everything that it was. She also worked on Kanye's Atlantic City shows. In those shows, she projected harsh weather conditions onto six different massive screens, creating a powerful and immersive environment. Devlin has worked for other big names as well, including Lady Gaga, the Olympics, MTV, and many more.