A$AP K Interview with Culture Trip

“Style is not meant to be defined,” says Kamoni Chandler aka A$AP K. “Definition transforms style to trends. Once traits are identifiable, they can be easily reproduced. Reproduction makes style bland.” So goes the ideological argument against fast fashion that independent designers have been making about street wear and high fashion alike. This New York designer was born and raised uptown, and as part of the A$AP Rocky crew, positions himself as part of a collective that uses fashion as a way to forge community.

“The first person I met was Rocky. A$AP wasn’t a thing yet. Rocky and Ricky (my cousin) are best friends; we were all kids together uptown. You know, we were 14-year-olds into Gucci and Fendi, but in the neighborhood kids would say, ‘you’re not as fly as Rocky,’” indicating it’s not just the label you wear, but how you wear it. At the time I sit down with Chandler, A$AP Rocky has starred in Dior Homme campaigns for two seasons. It has become popular for luxury brands like Gucci and Louis Vuitton to partner with influential street wear sites Highsnobiety and Hypebeast to reach a millennial audience. But luxury brands showing an appreciation for street wear is a relatively new phenomenon (take, for example, the Louis Vuitton x Supreme SS17 collaboration), making the relationship between street and high fashion more dynamic and symbiotic.

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