A man and his muse, a pairing as old as time, has been a consistent trope in the world of fashion. The most viable “weapon” in the arsenal of dapper men with exquisite style personas more than Celine button-downs and Richard Mille wristwatches is a woman they can “dress like a doll” as a reflection of their style prowess. Perhaps one of the biggest purveyors of this trope is Kanye West, who infamously crafted Kim Kardashian’s style rebrand back in 2012. Kardashian herself has gone on the record stating that West “totally picks out my looks” and did a complete overhaul of her closet when they first began dating.
His most recent sartorial takeover took place at the 2025 Grammy Awards on Sunday, where he urged wife, Bianca Censori, to shed her fur coat on the red carpet, revealing her fully nude body, covered with a completely see-through mini dress.
But like many of West’s recent stunts, this outfit reveal didn’t land as innovative or boundary-pushing. It was just dehumanizing.
Many describe Censori’s assumed cooperation in this dynamic as some sort of humiliation ritual, while others are calling out the signs of abuse reflected in their interactions. This isn’t the first time West has urged Censori to bear it all in attempts to farm engagement and reel in the attention that fuels the social media tirades, anti-Black interviews and anti-semitic rants that have marked much of the last 10 years of West’s life.
Beyond this being a gross display of objectification and another tack on the board for West’s history of abhorrent and dangerous behaviors, it also sheds light on the harm enacted by the muse trope.
While it may seem cute and even romantic to have a partner so dedicated to your aesthetic advancement, appearance surveillance, like any other controlling behavior, is dangerous.
