How is Vanessa Beecroft related to SKIMS? Kanye West credits the artist for Kim Kardashian’s fashion brand

Vanessa Beecroft, who is known as one of the lead collaborators for the brand SKIMS, having worked on their various campaigns, joined Kanye West during his interview with DJ Akademiks.

The Italian-born artist was seen in a behind-the-scenes video released on X (formerly Twitter), where she was seen helping with outfit fittings before the interview. In the video, the "Can't Tell Me Nothing" singer credits Beecroft as the mastermind behind the Kim Kardashian's brand SKIMS.

In the video, while introducing Vanessa to DJ Akademiks, Kanye, who is seen wearing a swastika around his neck and a Sean John tshirt (Sean John Combs is the birth name of Diddy, who at the moment is embroiled in several lawsuits against him), says:

“That’s really where Skims came from, that’s her whole style”

In another video snippet, Kanye tells DJ Akademiks that Vanessa Beecroft will be accompanying him to Japan for a photoshoot.

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More about Vanessa Beecroft, Kanye West's longtime collaborator

Vanessa Beecroft, who was born in Italy on 25 April 1969, studied at Brera Academy before moving to the US in 1996 at the invitation of American curator Jeffery Deitch.

Beecroft has collaborated with Kanye West on all of his fashion shows for his brand, Yeezy, after the duo met in 2008. In an interview, the artist recounted how the collaboration with the rapper came about. She said,

"After my career started to fade slowly, being less on a hype, and I moved to Los Angeles, Kanye looked for me. I didn’t know who he was because I don’t know anything about pop culture. I don’t listen to music. And when he approached me I decided to work with him because he was my alter ego: An African American male, and I was a white woman. So I said, it’s perfect, I’m going to take advantage of this channel to do something I could never do before.”

Vanessa has worked with Kanye West on his short film "Runaway." In her interview with Billboard, she discussed the vision behind the third season of the Yeezy fashion show at Madison Square Garden.

"That was a random pick. The image came out of one of my books, and I thought, ‘Perhaps this is Woodstock,’ because it looked really fashionable and glamorous, but no. That was a refugee camp… I wanted the people to look poor. Poverty and elegance were the key words. Poverty and elegance. No trends, no fashion. Real poverty, what you encounter when you travel to Africa, Mexico, those countries where people wear their clothes with dignity and they look elegant and they look like they have intelligence."

Vanessa Beecroft has also collaborated on Kim Kardashian's shapewear line previously called Kimono. After a string of controversy regarding the name, it was changed to SKIMS.

Additionally, Vanessa has also photographed Kim Kardashian in many of her photoshoots. Vanessa Beecroft also designed Kim Kardashian and Kanye West's wedding in 2014. In an interview she said,

"We were conflicting with a wedding planner from LA. I did want to make it very minimal."

Later, in an interview with The Cut, the designer alleged that Kim Kardashian had removed her from the position of a full-time employee. She said,

“It was Kim Kardashian. She cut everything out.”

Vanessa Beecroft, who continues to collaborate with Kanye West, lives in L.A. with her husband and four children.