You know times have changed when new dad A$AP Rocky goes out wearing something that isn’t a pair of pants

Three days ago, A$AP Rocky took a break from fatherhood duties and stepped out in New York in an A-line, knee-grazing, leather Givenchy skirt. American Vogue said that he “went full cybergoth”. Its British counterpart was certain that he “sets the bar for modern menswear”. W magazine thought he “looked effortlessly cool”. GQ’s approving headline read, “Only for A$AP Rocky Is August Leather Kilt Season”, carefully avoiding the S-word. It was, overall, a strong show of support, if you ignore one unkind headline that went, “Shocker: A$AP Rocky Spotted Out… Wearing Rihanna’s Leather Skirt”.

He is, of course, not a “man in a skirt”; he is A$AP Rocky in a skirt. Just like it was Brad Pitt in a skirt days earlier (linen, by Haans Nicholas Mott) and Kanye West in a skirt even way before (2011, during a concert, when he was costumed by Givenchy, then designed by Riccardo Tisci). More mortal males would not be able to rock a similar skirt, even if it is based on a simple shape, so uncomplicated that they’re often the basic skirt taught in pattern-making and sewing classes. Guys without the same standing, social and fashion-wise, as the rapper, would not be blessed with such encouraging headlines. That A$AP Rocky chose a more ‘solid’ silhouette in a hulky fabric such as leather is to leave the viewer in no doubt of his cis gender and his procreative heterosexuality.

This was not A$AP Rocky’s first time wearing a skirt, but it was the first time he wore one as a father. Before his very public romance with Rihanna, he was seen in Rick Owens and Vivienne Westwood “kilts”—entry level skirts that could help the wearer graduate to more serious stuff. That he and his fellow artistes in skirts no longer receive derogatory comments could be due to the garment’s popularity among, in particular, Black rappers, such as P Diddy, Omar Epps, R Kelly, Snoop Dog, Coolio, just to name a few. Still, only a very small group of them gets accolades for wearing skirts. To quote, Quentin Tarantino, who said of Brad Pitt in this month’s issue of GQ, “It’s just a different breed of man”.

Photo: Backgrid