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He’s the self-made rapper best known for shutting down the front row by wearing a black tracksuit and throwing all his Gucci in the bin.
So it should come as no surprise that when it came to the launch of his own fashion line, Skepta was determined to do things his own way. “The clothes don’t make the man, the man makes the clothes,” says grime’s golden boy turned fashion designer Joseph Junior “Skepta” Adenuga, when we catch up days before the collection is due to launch. “My fashion line is for everybody, not just my fans.”
For the Tottenham artist who has fashioned an affinity with low-key, logo-free tracksuits into his trademark, the launch of Mains — named in reference to “power” (the brand’s discreet logo is shaped like a British electricity socket) — was a chance for Skepta to stage a democratic style statement.
“Growing up on the streets, it took me a while to realise that you can do great things in a tracksuit,” he says. “I’ve won a Mercury award in a tracksuit, I’ve won a Novello award for songwriter of the year in a tracksuit, I’ve played the Brits main stage in a tracksuit. I wanted to make a tracksuit that could be worn anywhere.”
The collection’s launch coincides with Selfridges’ Music Matters campaign, which will see the store’s UltraLounge transformed into a venue for musical collaborations and performances — including Skepta’s, who is due to open proceedings tonight — and features his take on the trackie in pride of place. “You can wear the tracksuit we’ve made to dinner, you can wear it for sports, you can wear it to a christening or a bar mitzvah — you can wear it anywhere and you’re not going to look out of place.”
Along with two hero unisex trackies — one black, one khaki, both detailed with subtle embroidery inspired by Morocco and his African heritage — the shop will also stock an edit of well-considered basics, including a handful of refreshingly unassuming T-shirts and sports socks. Plus, he tells me, there’s more in the making, from jackets to caps and bags. Eagle-eyed Skepta fans may even recognise a few of the key pieces from the style icon’s recent appearances on best-dressed lists.
“I’ve worn the tracksuit in many different places on many different occasions and it’s always the star of the event. It’s either really understated — like I go to the British Fashion Awards and it’s like wow, you’re here wearing something that’s not a suit, but you look very smart - or when you go to somewhere when everyone’s in a tracksuit, you’ve got the best tracksuit on out of everybody. It really represents what I’m about.”
But while Skepta’s position as a champion of any-dress-code sportswear may tie in neatly with the fashion industry’s current preoccupation with athleisure, he isn’t concerned with what the style set are wearing on the front row, but in proving himself as a positive role model for his young, label-obsessed followers. It was this motivation which prompted him to infamously bin luxury brands in the lyrics of his game-changing hit That’s Not Me.
“I metaphorically threw all my Louis Vuitton in Gucci in the bin because everywhere I went, people would be wearing £400 belt buckles and complaining that their lives were hard and they never had money,” he says. “It was really getting to me because I would go and make music — make things happen — and all they would say is ‘yeah, but you’re Skepta, it’s easy for you’. But I wasn’t born like this, this is something that I’ve built up. I think people have got lost with looking good on the outside, no matter how empty or broke it makes them feel on the inside. For me, as a black boy from Tottenham, I needed to say ‘yo, you guys are hustling backwards’. What you’re doing makes no sense. Let me show you how to do it: let me go into Sports Direct, pick up a tracksuit and then jump on a stage and pick up a Mercury.”
In line with this ethos for equality, Skepta was keen to ensure that his label remained accessible. “Something that’s expensive to one person may not be to another, and that was something I was mindful of. But I think I’m exactly the right price for what I represent.”
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Now, as a globally-renowned artist routinely name-checked as a trailblazer for UK grime’s transatlantic transition, Skepta allows himself the occasional designer indulgence. “I wear designer now because I feel like I’m at a stage in my life where I can and I should. That’s when you should be buying something, not when it’s got you by the balls.”
But his tastes are defiantly eclectic. While has a soft spot for Chanel — he attended the fashion house’s most recent catwalk show — he also harbours a fondness for charity shops, choosing to “buy a big bulk of stuff from charity shops and then one piece that I’ve fallen in love with from a designer.”
Chanel AW17 at Paris Fashion Week
He’s also progressively post-gender in his fashion choices — “it might be womenswear but that’s just a word. At the end of the day, if there’s a top on a hanger that I really like then I want to wear it” — and routinely “de-badges” the logos from his purchases, preferring instead his signature understated approach.
Perhaps given that this isn’t his first foray into fashion — the artist has previously partnered with Uniqlo, styled music videos for Wiley and collaborated with London Fashion Week Men’s designer Nasir Mazhar — Skepta has found the transition from music to design an instinctive one. “No matter what the creation - fashion or music - it’s about attention to detail,” he says. “And integrity.”
Much like his approach to music, he was determined to take a hands-on role in production. “I’m used to making my own instrumentals, mixing them, mastering them, pressing upload to YouTube. I’m always there throughout the creative process. When it came to designing I was drawing something on paper, writing down the fabrics I think should be used, travelling to Morocco to find the right shade of green, going to the factory in Portugal to meet the workers — but then you have to be patient and wait for the samples to come back. I’ve been working on the brand for two years now. We got there in the end.”
Skepta also admirers the style of his brother JME — a fellow grime MC and co-founder of their record label collective, Boy Better Know — and counts his childhood hero Bob Marley as “the total package — his style, his music, everything”. He also recalls being influenced by a very different music scene in London during his formative years. “When I was younger, the scene in London was heavy drum and bass. I’ve always been a tall kid, so I used to sneak into raves every weekend. I used to wear Moschino, Versace, Iceberg History. It felt like being in a constant music video. Being African too, the design and the colours of the native attire will always be in my soul, so when I saw all these bright colours and patterns it really resonated with me.”
He feels the lines between music taste and style are increasingly blurred. “So many different cultures are mixing in a melting pot. In the grime scene, you used to be in fitted caps and Akademik tracksuits. But now people understand there’s no point in putting yourself in a box. Before you could tell what music someone listened to because of the way they were dressed. But you wouldn’t see someone wearing Mains and go ‘he listens to Skepta’, just because they bought my tracksuit. You could be a businessman from Dubai, a hippy from LA, or a grime MC from London and wear a Mains tracksuit.”
It is the amalgamation of London’s multicultural climate which he believes should be credited for its inhabitants’ inexhaustible levels of creativity, as well as the root of his own individuality.
“I’ve always felt alien. When I was at school, everyone laughed at me because I was African. But when I go to Nigeria, because I’ve lived in England all my life I can’t speak the language. I always felt that being alien was something bad, but when I grew up I realised that to find my true self I have to understand that I am nobody else. I am one of a kind.”
MAINS, by Skepta, launches as part of Music Matters at Selfridges, until October 18 (selfridges.com/mains; mainslondon.com)