Kim Kardashian needed Kanye West and Balenciaga to make her a fashion star – The Mercury News

Try as she might, Kim Kardashian is having a difficult time distancing herself from the separate controversies engulfing her ex-husband Kanye West and the luxury fashion house Balenciaga, her lucrative fashion brand partner.

West, of course, is the father of Kardashian’s four children. In a parenting capacity, the reality TV star has to deal with the fallout from his antisemitic rages, denial of the Holocaust and association with a notorious white supremacist, as well as his pariah status in American culture and his periodic accusations that she was an unfaithful spouse or an unfit mother.

But the rapper and Yeezy designer also looms large in Kardashian’s current status and wealth as a fashion star. So does Balenciaga.

Because of Kardashian’s personal relationship with West, people suspect she’s been reluctant to condemn his controversial statements more forcefully over the years. In the case of Balenciaga, people think the Skims shapewear founder is motivated by money and professional status to not cut ties with the French-based fashion house, even after it made the controversial decision to showcase toddler girls in a bondage-themed ad for teddy bear purses.