A number of days earlier than New York Trend Week started, it was introduced that AWGE, A$AP Rocky’s model that has proven in Paris the previous two seasons, was throwing a shock present, upending the calendar for the week with a present that felt intentionally grounded — much less about spectacle, extra about his perspective.
“Me being from right here, I felt prefer it was acceptable,” he mentioned postshow of the homecoming. His sense of residence anchored a set that sprawled each genders, blurring classes whereas making a press release.
The providing moved fluidly between sharp tailoring, preppy staples, pragmatic workwear, and sports activities, usually colliding all of it in a manner that felt distinctly Rocky — exact however just a little unruly. Plaids surfaced repeatedly — some evoking a “Clueless”-era schoolgirl primness — solely to be subverted with fur trims, exaggerated proportions, or surprising cloth clashes.
In the meantime, tailoring leaned latex-slick and barely confrontational with a couple of concepts, whereas others went pure oversize workwear. Sporty touches had been plentiful: a variety of leather-based racing coats and cropped jerseys from Puma, a model he commonly collaborates with, and eyewear from Ray-Ban, the place he’s inventive director. Every was a transparent industrial through-line with out dulling the gathering’s edge.
He famous that he understands what males need, however with womenswear he usually seeks out a feminine for perspective. Perhaps his companion Rihanna helps — she did sit within the entrance row beaming and was there comparatively early for her, in full AWGE subsequent to A$AP Nast.
The present broke the fourth wall, bringing friends behind the scenes with make-up stations on the runway. The multihyphenate wished the viewers to “see us preparing, see the imperfections” of fashions pausing at glam stations whereas a dwell feed projected a behind-the-scenes have a look at the lineup across the partitions of the large former financial institution area.
Equipment did a lot of the heavy lifting. Oversize baggage — deliberately impractical in scale — signaled style as angle fairly than utility. Others had a message with “We coronary heart our nation,” with a damaged coronary heart emoji, whereas fur child pouches and an enormous leather-based child carriage underscored Rocky’s curiosity in on a regular basis objects reframed as style statements, presenting fatherhood as seen, styled and normalized.
“I believed it was cool to type of put males in positions, pushing strollers. It’s not likely too far-fetched when you concentrate on concerned dad and mom or fathers. I simply wished to place it below a distinct scope and present city individuals doing it, swagging it up,” he mentioned.
The end result was a present that felt expansive and thrilling, fairly than edited down — messy in locations, sure, but additionally honest and teaming with id, neighborhood, and the lived actuality of how individuals gown, transfer and look after each other. In returning to New York, Rocky didn’t simply come residence — he re-centered his style dialog round tradition.
