Hey, Quick Question: Is Kanye West Venturing into the Beauty Industry?
Kanye West. Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Welcome to our column, "Hey, Quick Question," where we investigate seemingly random happenings in the fashion and beauty industries. Enjoy!
Tastemaker, designer, musician and world leader Kanye West is working on a cosmetics line, according to TMZ, as spotted by our eagle-eyed friends at The Cut. He filed legal documents to trademark the "Donda" brand name across many different business categories; a quick search via Trademarkia reveals he's possibly looking to get into jewelry, handbags, nutrition, blogs and more — but the only one of those categories that's marked with a status of "publication/issue review complete" (a.k.a. this officially seems to be happening, people!) is cosmetics. The name "Donda" pays tribute to his late mother, who passed away in 2007.
It's not exactly surprising that West is looking to get into cosmetics; it's a fairly natural next step for many designers after establishing fashion brands. But given that the Kardashian-Jenners have already staked their claim in the beauty industry (see: Kylie Cosmetics, Kendall Jenner's Estée Lauder partnership, the controversial Kardashian Beauty brand), it will be interesting to see what, exactly, West's cosmetics line will look like should it come to fruition. Will it include bleach that can transform normal, human-looking, dark-brown hair into blonde peach fuzz (like Kanye's, pictured above) seemingly overnight? TBD.
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But allow us to also remind you that this alleged beauty brand is merely a drop in the bucket when compared with the massive list of "categories of influence" Kanye has planned for his long-discussed Donda Communications Company. Also making the cut? Holograms, hovercrafts, matchmaking, web security, wave power, summer school and healthy fast food.
Sure, why not.
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