We typically don't see much of Kendrick Lamar; the reclusive rapper prefers to keep his private life, well, private. That all changed over the past few weeks, as we've suddenly been blessed by more K.Dot than ever before, all capped by Kendrick's unbelievably powerful appearance at Chanel's Couture Week fashion show.
On July 4, Kendrick Lamar parted the crowd outside the Chanel show like the red sea, wearing nothing but Chanel: Chanel bandana atop Chanel cap and Chanel glasses, Chanel tweed jacket, cleverly looped pearl Chanel necklace, and monogrammed Chanel jeans.
Kendrick looks so effortlessly elegant, so casually stylish that you probably won't even notice that he's rocking a women's jacket — in fact, everything that Kendrick's wearing is technically womenswear, as Chanel doesn't do menswear besides its one-off collaboration with Pharrell.
That's a real feat, to not only make an inconceivably expensive Chanel outfit look toss-on-and-go cool but to also get clothes ostensibly designed as womenswear to fit this naturally. If ever anyone doubted Kendrick Lamar's personal style, let them be proven wrong.
Don't misunderstand me, by the way: I don't think anything, clothing especially, needs to be restrained by outdated gender norms. The reason I'm harping on the "womenswear" angle is simply because clothes are typically cut to fit gendered body types.
Knowing that, you'd expect Kendrick's Chanel jacket to be a little too small in the waist, for instance (and perhaps there's a reason why he hasn't buttoned it), but he instead nails the shoulders and sleeves, neatly contrasting the relaxed cut of his jeans with the jacket's refined, abbreviated cut.
Like I said, it's inherently difficult to pull off this flavor of fancy clothing. You run the risk of the garments wearing you.
But because Kendrick Lamar has affected a pretty timeless look — jacket, T-shirt, jeans — with a pretty perfect fit on each garment, he's pulling off Chanel in a way that I haven't seen since, again, Pharrell x Chanel. Oh, and his visible confidence doesn't hurt.
Now that Timothée Chalamet is also in league with Chanel, I wonder if the number of male Chanel ambassadors will slowly tick upwards. If so, they've got good taste: Kendrick Lamar doesn't just show up for anyone, you know.
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