Six Degrees of Separation: Kanye West to Sally Rooney

Let's take a scenic tour through opera, film, and famous children's Halloween costumes.

by Emma Specter
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Mar 26 2019, 3:04pm

Spring has (almost) sprung, which means it’s time to revive a GARAGE favorite that’s lain dormant throughout a long and punishing winter; Six Degrees of Separation is back, baby! This week, we're delineating the dots between the multihyphenate G.O.A.T. of rap/fashion/arts patronage, Kanye West, and the up-and-coming G.O.A.T. of 21st-century Irish fiction, Sally Rooney. Let's get into it!

Kanye West

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Kanye West attends the the Versace fall 2019 fashion show at the American Stock Exchange Building in lower Manhattan on December 02, 2018 in New York City. (Photo by Roy Rochlin/Getty Images)

The artist occasionally known as Yeezy wed O.G. reality queen Kim Kardashian in 2014, with the bride walking down the aisle in Givenchy at the Forte del Belvedere in Florence.

Kim Kardashian

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Kim Kardashian departs Cipriani on February 7, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by Gotham/GC Images)

Kim and Kanye made a trip to Rome to watch director Sofia Coppola's operatic debut of La Traviata in 2016, for which Valentino himself outfitted lead soprano Violetta.

Sofia Coppola

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Sofia Coppola attends the Chanel Haute Couture Spring Summer 2019 show as part of Paris Fashion Week on January 22, 2019 in Paris, France. (Photo by Stephane Cardinale - Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images)

The legendary film heiress directed 2006's Marie Antoinette, a sumptuous, frilly affair that got a "meh" from critics at the time, but has since been reexamined by the likes of Refinery29 and the New Yorker, with the New York Times recently posing a vital question: "Why Hasn't Sofia Coppola Gotten the Respect an Auteur Deserves?"

Marie Antoinette

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Marie-Antoinette (1755-1793), German engraving. (Photo by Photo12/UIG/Getty Images)

One of Sarah Jessica Parker's twin daughters, Tabitha and Marion, (I have no idea which one, sorry), dressed up as Marie Antoinette for Halloween after the bewigged, big-skirted aesthetic was firmly reintroduced by the Coppola film.

Sarah Jessica Parker

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Sarah Jessica Parker filming on location for 'Divorce' on the streets of Manhattan on March 11, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by James Devaney/GC Images)

SJP, who now sells shoes down by the seaport, took to Instagram to praise Rooney's Conversations with Friends, helping book sales soar with her rave review: "This book. This book. I read it in one day. I hear I'm not alone. X, sj."

Sally Rooney

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Category winning author Sally Rooney attending the 2018 Costa Book Awards, at Quaglino's, London. JANUARY 29th 2019PHOTOGRAPH BY Richard Kendal / Barcroft Images (Richard Kendal / Barcroft Images / Barcroft Media via Getty Images)

At just 28 years old (it's fine, I'm fine, I'm not screaming), the Trinity College Dublin-educated author is already getting accolades for her newest novel, "Normal People," out in the U.S. on April 16. (I ordered an English copy early, and my own personal, desperately-awaited review is in; it's good! Rooney's books have the unique capacity to make me feel like I'm reading alone in a well, from which nobody will ever rescue me or hear my screams. But like, in a fun way.)

The L.A. Review of Books recently placed Rooney among Sheila Heti and Karl Ove Knausgaard in a "a cadre of authors who have renewed the realist novel by doubling down on its capacity for rich psychological description," and I, for one, can't wait to 'gram the cover of her latest book as I blast Kanye.

Tagged:
sally rooney
kanye west
Kim Kardashian
Sarah Jessica Parker
Sofia Coppola
Marie Antoinette
Books