Subscribe
Cassius Life Featured Video
CLOSE
Saturday Night Live - Season 46

Source: NBC / Getty

Kid Cudi‘s appearance this past weekend on Saturday Night Live in a spaghetti-strap floral-print dress got social media fired up, and Mr. Rager received praise for his public fashion statement, challenging restrictive and arbitrary gender norms while paying tribute to Nirvana’s late frontman Kurt Cobain. The day after, Cudi went on Twitter and thanked the dress’ designer, none other than Off-White founder Virgil Abloh.

“Virgil designed the dress for me,” he wrote on his page on Sunday. “I told him I wanted to show love to Kurt w a floral print sundress and this man made a masterpiece. Thank You @virgilabloh ur a fuckin genius!! Love you man we did it!!!” The very next minute, Cudi followed up with the announcement, “Im doin a collection w Off White and the dress will be included!!”

The same day, Abloh went on his own Instagram page to allude to the collab while saluting Cudi’s SNL appearance. He captioned photos from the performance and captioned them with the following: “freedom is, as freedom does. feel free. feel me. @Off____White™ specially reserved for Mr. Rager only, @kidcudi ~ @nbcsnl”

This is only the latest collaboration between the rapper and Abloh, however. In May of last year, the duo came together to release a limited edition T-shirt celebrating Cudi’s song, “Leader of the Delinquents,” Cudi’s first song since December 2016.

Two months ago, Abloh unveiled his own Off-White spring 2021 collection and spoke with Vogue about the ways in which he wants to “put his Off-White platform to work in the name of erasing gender-conformist boundaries.” He made an issue to discuss how the label is reflecting a redefinition of men’s clothes with the times.

“I love the freedom of the Off-White male now,” Abloh said in the phone interview. “If you look at what the brand is in the streets versus this proposition, I love that there’s dissonance. I love that it’s not congruent. It’s my call to the response of what fashion looks like in 2021 as opposed to what it looked like in 2019, after this great uprising and these great emotional testimonies have been made.”

He then continued to explain how Off-White is more than just another label but really a mode of being. “You make a fashion brand to get a tribe of people to wear it,” he expressed, “but my conception of the brand is that it doesn’t erase personality. It doesn’t say ‘wear this to be in the club.’ If you look at the people around me, Off-White comes with no prerequisites to wear the clothes. You can be of the Off-White tribe and not own a piece of clothing at all.”

Let’s see what’s next in store for Rager and Abloh, and stay tuned for the dress’ drop date for your opportunity to express personality in your own way as well.