Written By Jo Yee
When it comes to fashion trends, there are the followers, and then there are the ones who bend, snap and break the normative trends and turn it into a whole league of their own. Hot off of ASAP Rocky’s recent album Testing is a collaboration with FKA Twigs on “Fukk Sleep”, which to fashion nerds like me are a whole lot more of a visual feast of epic proportions than just music to the ears.
Picture Credits: Henson
In this visual masterpiece directed by acclaimed photographer and filmmaker Diana Kunst, we see the diabolical duo wrecking havoc through town in an arsenal of eclectic looks and and unapologetic swagger in their every step.
We see ASAP Rocky, styled by Matthew Henson (@henson), starring the music video with futuristic streetwear that is upscaled with high end usuals like Alexander Wang, Raf Simons and Calvin Klein. However, his looks also featured other smaller brands that surprisingly outshone these bigger names in terms of flair, the likes of Christian Stone’s (@imongrindr) neon balaclava and Martin Rose’s (@martin_rose) snakeskin pants combo bring a dash of colour to an otherwise monotonous ensemble.
Picture Credits: Matthew Josephs
Immediately after that the limelight is stolen by FKA Twigs in the video with her full throttle of looks, which include big names such as Christopher Kane, Dior and Versace. The look, styled by Twig’s personal stylist – Matthew Josephs (@matthew_josephs), is complemented meticulously by other alternative fashion brands from the scene such as Yueqi (@_yueqiqi), Creepyyeha (@creepyyeha) and the notorious Fecal Matter (@matieresfecales whose iconic alien duo also makes a cameo) that comes together to create Twig’s intoxicating looks, further cementing her iconic symbol as the alt-goddess of the decade.
Josephs, who leads fashion direction for FKA Twigs on her videos, campaigns and editorial content, explains to Vogue UK that Twigs had wanted to push herself out of her ethereal comfort zone into more provocative sartorial territory. “One of the main inspirations was my favourite [John] Galliano Dior collection, autumn/winter 2003 – it’s the perfect match of soft and hard-core romance,” says Josephs, and he sourced some of the pieces in the video and for Twig’s zine – Avant Garden, from that particular season such as the delicate floral latex headpiece seen on Twigs in the stripper joint scene.
Despite having last released her album M3LL155X over 3 years ago, Twigs, who first started out her career as a dancer with insane skills ranging from contemporary dance to even incorporating ‘Shibari’ in her music video Pendulum surprises her fans this time by picking up pole dancing while cladded in Nasir Mazhar’s (@nasirmazhar) red PVC body harness and knee pads, in which she demonstrates her skillset effortlessly in this video. Her interpretive dance skills, a feature in almost all her music videos, has been picked up by major brands like Nike and Apple, which features her injecting, unfettered coolness into each shot of their product campaigns. It’s undeniable that the dexterity that comes with her dancing skills definitely elevates a lot of her looks as Twigs owns these looks with her unique finesse and not the other way round, which often seems to be case for artistes who lacks their own vision when it comes to the curation of their visual aesthetics.
Picture Credits: Matthew Josephs
Rarely is history made by following trends, hence along the line of artist-cum-style icons like Madonna, Grace Jones and Lil Kim, Twigs is definitely setting the bar sky-high that sets her apart from the cookie cut out of the masses. By imbuing her unique individuality as a multi-disciplinary artist into every crevice of her artistic creation, Twigs definitely leave us wanting and waiting for more from her.
