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Rihanna debuted her line for UK retailer, River Island during London Fashion Week on Saturday night and the show was on Livestream for everyone to see. The presentation opened to mixed reviews, even though both fans and fashion lovers have been eagerly waiting to see the collection since the collaboration was announced last July. Critics in the fashion world are usually skeptical of celebrity fashion lines (see Kanye West), and the show starting almost an hour after planned certainly didn't help.
Complex is an expert when it comes to men's style, but we're pretty certain we'd completely screw up trying to critique a women's fashion collection. So we rounded up a bunch of reviews from the show, which ranged from being on board with RiRi to absolutely slamming the collection. Click through to see what the critics had to say, and if you agree with those who loved it or if you're siding with the haters.
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1
"If you were a guy hoping for a one night stand and a girl started chatting to you in a bar wearing anything from the Rihanna for River Island collection, you could feel fair confident you'd be getting lucky. The only lingering uncertainty in your mind would be whether or not she would take a credit card." [via The Daily Beast]
2
"If you plan to pair a cropped sweatshirt with a low-rise skirt, don't approach unless your midriff is as toned as Ri-Ri's." [via Daily Mail]
6
"The clothes were unapologetically RiRi and her Rihanna Navy will lap it up regardless of design merit or innovation, if only for the kind of bragging rights Rihanna takes an inordinate amount of pleasure in." [via Pedestrian]
7
"Even before Rihanna unveiled her unsurprisingly slutty and yet tiresomely predictable collection for River Island at London Fashion Week tonight, there were many who said that it was a mistake to allow the world's most famous pop star of the moment to hijack an event which is supposed to be about celebrating creativity, passion and original thinking in fashion (as opposed to lazily co-opting celebrity endorsement to shift mediocre, mass-market product, which is what McDonalds is for)." [via The Daily Beast]
11
"It wasn't Rihanna Plane levels of bad, but it wasn't great. The collection itself was - to borrow a phrase - basic, but perhaps that was the point." [via Pedestrian]
16
"Even if we didn't know that this was RiRi's collection, we would have guessed. Her style DNA was infused into every stitch of the fabric. From the thigh-high-split maxi dresses and not-for-the-faint-hearted mesh vests to the '90s-inspired crop tops and matching short shorts, the looks could only have been designed by this woman." [via Refinery29]
17
"The clothes were hideous and without an ounce of panache or style between them." [via The Daily Beast]
18
"The whole shebang did seem more like a concert than a fashion show. A scrub of paparazzi jostled outside the venue while hip-hop beats pulsated throughout. There was a stage in lieu of a runway. And, much to the annoyance of reporters comatose with exhaustion after running around in heels all day, things didn't kick off until 50 minutes after the scheduled start time." [via Forbes]
21
"There was nothing too weird in the collection — but will it sell up a storm at its introduction next month, as the River Island executives hope? " [via New York Times]
19
"The clothes struck a balance between sexy and sporty, urban and utilitarian...There was a heavy dose of nineties nostalgia too." [via Forbes]
