Doechii made history at the Grammys earlier this year when she became the third woman to ever win the Best Rap Album award for Alligator Bites Never Heal. Now, she’s making some personal fashion history for herself. The rapper just arrived at her very first Met Gala, wearing Louis Vuitton to honor the night’s “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style” theme.
“This is one of the biggest nights in fashion, and for it to be so Black? I’m present. I’m here,” she told red carpet hosts Teyana Taylor and Ego Nwodim.
A Met Gala look this intricate requires proper research. Doechii revealed she turned to the pages of Monica L. Miller’s seminal book Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity for inspiration, specifically the character Julius Soubise. Doechii reinterpreted Soubise’s sartorial prowess alongside Pharrell, who serves as Louis Vuitton’s creative director. The end result is a white Louis Vuitton logo monogrammed jacket and accompanying checkered bermuda shorts. She anchored the light look with deeper burgundy accents, from her silk scarf tied into a bow to her knee-high socks and loafers.
However, in true Doechii fashion, beauty took the spotlight. The rapper traded in her signature braids for an air-grazing, rounded afro. While she was without her signature face tape, she offered an alternative novelty: an LV sign adorning her cheeks.
Doechii’s Met Gala debut look was also a nod to her Grammy award-winning album, which heavily salutes ’90s themes and sounds. “Especially this year, me having the project that I have out [being] heavily inspired by ’90s rap, I felt inspired by the theme of ‘student of hip hop.’ I feel like that’s very dandy,” she added.
Last month, Doechii spoke to Cosmopolitan about her approach to fashion. She isn’t dressing for anyone’s gaze but her own. “With everything that I do in my life, I don’t have nobody in mind but me,” she began. “I like to fuck things up because to me, it looks cooler that way. I gravitated toward the face tape because it’s supposed to be hidden and it’s not. I’m that type of person. I like to turn my shirts inside out. I like to wear my pants backward. My love for imperfection shows up in my beauty and fashion a lot.”
She also discussed the evolution of her partnership with her stylist, Sam Woolf, and how intentional they are about the clothes they pick.
“When we first started working together in my early twenties, I said the goal was to be a fashion icon,” she said. “I just didn’t really have an idea of what I wanted to wear or who I was fashionably. We also couldn’t get pulls from big labels and designers. The style and the fashion have evolved as who I am as a woman has evolved. I just have a lot more clarity about what makes me feel comfortable and what represents me. I like to do a lot of research on these brands and their collections and see if the stories they’re telling align with mine. I can’t say what people are perceiving, but I can say the story that I’m telling through fashion is that ‘I’m everything.’ I’ve said that in my music, but now I want to say it through fashion.”
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