I love everything about this… except for what precipitated it, of course.
Antoinette Barbouttis was beginning to lament the “countless” merchandise by Kanye West that she owned – until she found a way to upcycle them with a humorous touch.
The Sydney-based woman said she had collected several t-shirts and a dozen Yeezy sneakers over the decade she listened to the famous rapper’s music.
But her initial discomfort with West, also known as Ye, turned into a boycott after he wrote a tirade of social media posts in late 2022 that were condemned as anti-Semitic.
“I was done. As soon as it was anti-Semitism, I thought, that’s next level-kind of dangerous, I’m not into that,” Ms Barbouttis said.
—
After a conversation with her friend, Jewish-Australian filmmaker and writer John Safran, about what she should do with her Ye-affiliated items, he had an idea.
“I was planning to never wear them again, but then I went to John and I said, ‘you’re Jewish, you could tell me what I could do with this stuff’ … but then John came up with the idea of turning it into a yarmulke,” she said.
The duo collaborated with Chrissy Seo, a costume tailor, and set about making a yarmulke – or “YEmulke” – in time for Mr Safran to host a multicultural comedy gala last week.
Mr Safran said it was a fun, playful project to make the religious skullcaps while making a poignant statement that Jews will not cower to anti-Semitism.
“You’re not even breaking our spirit. We’re responding with some weird kind of Jewish self-deprecation by saying, no, we’re here, we’re not tucking in our Stars of David, just because there are spells of anti-Semitism and people are trying to intimidate us into hiding,” he said.
—
Despite the intense labour around designing the yarmulkes, she said the humour behind the project made it all worth it.
“I think what was rewarding for me was that I was laughing the whole time,” she said.
While it initially began as a fun concept for the trio, Ms Barbouttis is considering selling the yarmulkes and donating a portion of the proceeds to the Jewish community “in this new era of Kanye”.
Just brilliant.
