Are Celebs Beating Brands at Their Own Game?
Artists like A$AP Rocky and Selena Gomez were brand ambassadors for years. They're now competing with their former collaborators.
Loewe and Rick Owens’ latest men’s shows were fantastic as ever, so was Dries van Noten’s final swan song for his namesake brand, but during last week’s Paris Men’s Fashion Week nothing cut through the feeds like A$AP Rocky’s debut runway show for his creative-agency-turned-brand, AWGE.
Titled ‘American Sabotage’ the rapper-turned-designer presented a line of deconstructed bombers, loose suiting, and manipulated graphic everything in Karl Lagerfeld’s former house, becoming the most buzzed about show of the entire week, despite the event being held outside of the official schedule.
Rihanna attended, shutting the place down, as did fellow musicians and friends Pusha T, Rema, and A$AP Nast, designers Jonathan Anderson, Kris van Assche, and Chitose Abe, and executives Alexandre Arnault and Slam Jam’s Luca Benini. That’s star power on star power.
“Rocky’s show was intense, in every sense of the world from the [hoards of] people in front of the door but also on the runway,” says Kris van Assche, who during his tenure as Creative Director of Dior Men’s was the first to embrace Rocky, letting him star in the brand’s campaign in 2016, long before rappers were fully embraced by luxury houses. “It felt honest to me, it was totally Rocky who didn’t pretend to do anything else than [make] his personal statement.”
Alex Sossah, Metallic Inc. co-founder who during his days at NEXT and Nike oversaw relationships with some of the world’s biggest talent agreed. “AWGE was a celebration of Rocky’s natural style, radiating authenticity and good vibes. The room was filled with friends and designers sitting in the front row, almost as if the roles were flipped.”
Talking with GQ’s Samuel Hine in a preview ahead of the collection launch, Rocky himself was aware of the symbolic shift happening. “I’ve been court-side for 15 years now. How many fucking Raf, Rick Owens, and Bottega shows have I been to? Now it’s my time to show how I’m going to kill it.”
Rocky’s debut AWGE show highlights a broader trend where celebrity brands, long dismissed as serious businesses, are finally reaching maturity. Celebrities already transcended their previous roles as brand ambassadors to launch their own direct-to-consumer products a few years ago. What’s changed recently, however, is that these brands have reached a scale where they’re beginning to directly compete with the very brands they once partnered with.
And it’s just the beginning…