An Exclusive Preview of A$AP Rocky’s Debut Paris Fashion Week Show

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A$AP Rocky has had ambitions in the fashion world for as long as he can remember. On Friday night, he’s bringing his multi-layered, zeitgeisty style to the Paris Fashion Week stage, where he’ll launch a collection under the moniker of his creative agency, AWGE.

An invite to the off-calendar show hit my inbox just over a week ago. The email was light on details, but the collection title, American Sabotage, suggested that Flacko was planning something weightier than the typical celebrity-led apparel project. He first teased the line way back at Rolling Loud in 2023, where the style chameleon wore a long sleeve white T-shirt printed with an image of a bulletproof vest emblazoned with the phrase; “Don’t Be Dumb,” a rumored title of his forthcoming album, ran down one sleeve, and his jeans sagged beneath several layers of plaid boxer shorts.

Rocky repeated the formula at Coachella this year, where he wore a black American Sabotage tee and denim stacked under green, white, and red boxers. As with anything the rule-breaking dresser does, especially while gearing up for an album release, fans began digging into the significance of his latest aesthetic evolution. Were the boxer colors a statement about the war in Gaza, as many interpreted them to be? Was he commenting on the demonization of sagging pants and other urban styles? Does he want to sabotage America, or is America sabotaging itself? And of course: what does this mean for the album?

The answer is basically: yes. Shortly after his appearance, Rocky’s Coachella outfit dropped on the AWGE webstore. But as he explained in a phone call last week while in New York where he was mastering his album (finally: an update!), American Sabotage is more than a glorified merch project. In fact, Rocky described the show as a “political satire.” What that means for the clothes isn’t entirely clear, as Rocky was reluctant to give too much away before his designs hit the runway in the opulent 18th-century mansion he’s taken over for the occasion.

What he would divulge was a link to his “ghetto expressionism” era, a visual style that combines the dark aesthetics of Tim Burton films with the visionary swagger of pioneering cultural titans like André 3000. (The term, as he told me in April, is a portmanteau of German Expressionism and ghetto futurism, and Rocky often shortens it as “GRIM.”) It’s how he describes his personal vibe right now, his distinct collage of gritty urban style cues with wavy pearl accessories (not to mention lots of Bottega Veneta). And he appears to be letting his ever-advancing taste guide American Sabotage.

In an exclusive preview image, the line looks how you might hope it would: like something A$AP Rocky would wear right now. There’s a distressed ballcap covering layers of bandana and what looks like a balaclava; a deep indigo sweatshirt with a contrasting armband around the bicep; jeans stacked over camo cargos over bright orange ruched shorts; what look like Timberlands. Though any overt political meaning isn’t immediately apparent, there’s a vibe of stylish dissension about it, bringing to mind Raf Simons’s radical 2001 “Riot! Riot! Riot!” collection.

Other hints Rocky dropped included a short list of friends and collaborators he’s been working with, like Puma; the show will debut new A$AP Rocky x Puma footwear, including a spiky 3-D printed clog and a custom AWGE version of the archival Inhale silhouette. There will also be an upcycled component to the collection, recalling the cloak-y collaboration he designed with regenerative French designer Marine Serre in 2019.

Will Rocky start his own riot in Paris? As the fashion week veteran reminded me, he’s sat in his fair share of front rows. “How many fucking Raf…shows have I been to?” he said. In other words, he knows what he’s doing. And now, the self-described “godfather of what we now call art and fashion” is ready to take his work to new heights. “Now it's time to show how I'm going to kill it, how I'm going to freak it,” he told me. “Now it's my time.”

GQ: Your show is in a week. What can you tell me about what you have planned?

A$AP Rocky: Oh, man. It's just me trying to encapsulate just all of my experiences, everything that I've learned, everything I've experienced about the social issues and the social climate of America. I think fashion is an expression. It's to express how you feel. This is no different. I think each great creative director, designer, artists, they always have that fine balance between conceptualization and manifestation.

How long have you been working on the collection?

For quite some time. It started around last year. But it’s never over until it's over though, right? No matter what, you're still making tweaks and changes, it’s so similar to the mixing the mastering stage of an album. Near the end, that's when you got miracles and buzzer beaters and stuff.

So you’re coming up against the buzzer of making and showing a fashion collection in Paris. Any miracles in store?

Oh man, absolutely. I mean, logistically there's so much that could go wrong. There's so much that can subsequently happen, and it's just about rolling with the punches. And I just look forward to the flaws, the mistakes. I look forward to imperfections, because I think that those are the qualities that kind of create character, and sometimes that's when you get your greatest creations or innovations through mistake or trial and error.

You've always been someone who's spoken your mind. The title of the collection is American Sabotage. Maybe this is an obvious question given what’s happening in the world, but why did you decide the time was right to make a political statement through clothing?

I think it's all about what I consider ghetto expressionism. I think hip-hop is a ghetto expression. I believe urbanwear style, demeanor, swagger, pizzazz, a lot of this is derived from ghetto expressionism. Even when you think about a DJ group like GHE20G0TH1K, that was ghetto expressionism. When you think about the great Rick Owens, you think about ghetto expressionism.

I think this is me, a kid who grew up in an urban background. I grew up in tragedy, poverty. I'm a victim of it just like a lot of people. And opposed to being so serious, it's having fun with it, it's more of a political satire. It's taking real life experiences and manifesting and including it in the collection in a cohesive and seamless way. I think American Sabotage will show in the collection. I think it’s time.

What are some of the political issues you'll be satirizing?

We're talking about obesity, mass incarceration, we're talking about immigration laws, tax laws, we're talking about poverty and a ton of stuff. I'm sorry, I'm kind of going on a spiel here, but it's like everything in one. [At AWGE] we touch on all of these political and social issues without feeling like we’re on one side or another. It's just all about just putting forward the artistic value. We talk about tax laws, mass incarceration, the FCC, the FDA, the prison industrial complex, human trafficking, the war on drugs. The list goes on. What is there not to talk about? There's a whole bunch of shit.

It sounds like the lyrics to a new ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire.’ Are you trying to capture a sense of modern political chaos?

But also just street politics, too. You got hood politics, you know what I'm saying? You got a ton of things. It's so many different perspectives, and that's what I tried to consider while making a collection. It's just how do I bring that culture and how do I bring that history into this collection and present that to everyone in Paris.

You mentioned GHE20G0TH1K and Rick Owens. As you designed the collection, did you have any brands or designers in mind?

It's funny you bring that up. It's because recently I did a song with Metro [Boomin] and Future, and I mentioned how I'm getting tired of seeing the Rick and the Balenciaga and it's over and all that. [Ed note: the line from ‘Show of Hands’ goes: No more Balenci' (Uh), I'm gettin' really tired of Rick (Tired of that shit).] Now I feel like I get a chance to kind of elaborate on it, kind of clear the air. Rick Owens, you can't ever take away what he did. And the same with Demna. We're talking about phenomenal designers who I admire to this day.

I'm talking more so about the people and the trends who fuck it up for me. And be honest with me, Sam, doesn't it ruin it when you see people that you know have no fashion taste just rocking the popular thing? They're ruining it for us. And these are the brands and the designers that we love. They are the designers just that make fashion what it is and fun and shit like that. You know what I'm saying? But some people fuck it up for us.

It's kind of trash because one day you’re just rocking what you love. Then the next day you got the world taking it, and sometimes you got people just doing it all wrong and just fucking it up and then it just doesn't really feel special no more. And that's the truth. But it is never over for Rick.

You’ve been on the cutting edge of the style conversation for your whole career. Is a fashion line how you push your fashion legacy forward?

I'm the godfather of what we now call art and fashion. Taking streetwear, taking luxury, blending them, mending them, matching them together. Taking skatewear, taking hoodwear brands and urban clothes and infusing them all together, that wasn't really done. I mean, let's take it back 13, 14 years ago when I was coming up, you didn't see guys rocking Nike and Adidas and Jeremy Scott with Rick Owens and Hood By Air with fucking Prada, you didn't see that shit. You didn’t see people rocking Raf. They didn't know what that was. You didn't see people wearing Balenci.

The plight that comes with being a trendsetter is sometimes you see the things you love, the precious brands, the precious designers, sometimes you see them overdone and you see them done by the masses. So then you gotta switch it up.

Explain what the vibe in the room will be like at showtime on Friday.

Like I said, I'm bringing my American Sabotage to Paris. It's going to be like a traditional retro Parisian show of everything my team and I created. It's going to be a breath of fresh air. You're going to see the best of the best people and you're going to see some of the best designs coming down the runway.

Can you tell me who you’re working with on the collection? Your relationships obviously extend deep in the fashion world.

This was a group effort to make everything happen, especially while the clock is ticking as we get closer to the end of it. I've been working with [young fashion designer] Joshua Jamal, I've been working with my team. It's been quite something, man. I'm excited for everybody to see what we are about to do. I'm working with Puma for sure. Also [burgeoning New York brand] J6 [by Joshua Garland], [the stylist] Matthew Henson. I'm working with [Coucou] Bebe. We've been going hard.

You approach projects with an extraordinarily particular taste level and eye for detail. How are you feeling about the complex production of a fashion show?

That's been easy, bro. I've been courtside for 15 years now. How many fucking Raf and Rick Owens and Bottega shows have I been to? Alessandro? I mean Loewe, you name it, I've been there. Now it's my time to show how I'm going to kill it, how I'm going to freak it. Now it's my time.

Do you have a favorite piece in the collection you can describe for me?

I’m really excited by things that look aged, it just gives more of a story. Where I'm at in my fashion sense currently, I love that shit. I like everything to look used, like it has history to it. Because it's so easy for us to just all make the same thing and fabricate the same thing, right? If everybody is getting fresh, what's the next step for getting fresh?

And like I told you, this thing is inspired by American Sabotage. One issue is third-world countries with clothing landfills. We’re upcycling and trying to repurpose a lot of materials. It kind of tells a story in the backstory. Think about the person that had to fish through the mountain of clothes just to put something together and ship it back to a company that shipped it to a company that shipped it back to the States before it got into my hands. I just like to think of it from that perspective. And think about the people who set a lot of trends when they were behind bars, sagging pants, durags, stuff from the kids in hip-hop back in the early '70s. This is a little bit of everything that I want to include into the show.

So there’s an upcycling component to American Sabotage?

Exactly.

When did that phrase pop into your head? Where did that come from exactly?

I was working on my album and I was thinking about being rebellious and the stuff that we’re not really allowed to talk about. It’s not about treason or nothing like that, it’s more about deciding to do things from a different perspective, taking the hard way instead of the easy way. And sometimes challenging yourself can come across as self-sabotaging. Exceeding time limits and deadlines, that's self-sabotaging. So it’s also about talking about your flaws and the struggle that made you.

Right, it’s difficult to sabotage a system, and much easier to sabotage yourself.

I mean obviously oppression is definitely a key factor in American history, right? Like you said, we're using the word in multiple ways.

What is your ultimate ambition with this project?

For me, it started in the US of A. It started with the Moors, it started in Africa. It started from ancient civilization and it traveled to North America and then it developed in the hood, the hood that I come from. It developed in Harlem, it developed in poverty, it developed in Manhattan, developed in beauty and diversity.

It developed in paradox, equality, inequality. It developed all these places. I'm just talking about my past experiences and it's going to premiere in Paris. What I want to do is no different from taking a New York bodega and bringing it to Selfridges in London. You take something with artistic value and put it in an unfamiliar, radical foreign climate. And there you have art.

I almost forgot to ask, did you compose the music for the show?

Absolutely!

Originally Appeared on GQ