“Every time I dress myself it go motherfuckin’ viral,” Young Thug boasts in his new single Halftime. Jaden Smith knows the feeling. The 16-year-old’s unique style choices–which have lately included some dresses and superhero costumes–almost always skyrocket to the top of Facebook’s trending ticker. In a new interview with GQ, Jaden shed a little more light on what motivates his gender bending, superhuman style choices.
“I’m just expressing how I feel inside, which is really no particular way because every day it changes how I feel about the world and myself,” the 16-year-old told the men’s magazine. “But I like wearing super drapey things so I can feel as though I’m a superhero, but don’t have to necessarily wear superhero costumes everyday.”
He did, apparently, used to wear animal prints every single day, giving the entire Flintstone family a run for their money: “At 13, I used to call myself the king of animal print, because I would wear them almost everyday, but then I became more conscious and realized I didn’t want to be known as someone who wears animal skins only, so I switched to black.”
But while Jaden’s all black ensembs might seemingly make him a candidate for Goth Talk, perhaps his most well known look is the Margiela equivalent of comic book costumes: an all white Batman suit debuted at Kimye’s wedding and given a victory lap at his first prom of 2015. “I wore the Batman suit to heighten my experience at the wedding and prom which was fun, but also at the wedding I felt as though I needed to protect everyone there and needed to have the proper gear to do so.” Protect them from what? Kanye interrupting his own first dance to proclaim Etta James’ At Last the best wedding song of all time?
Jaden also dished on his favorite Fresh Prince look, a crop top situation that apparently haunts his dad to this day: “My dad went on national television with a crop top on showing his belly button and to this day he regrets it, so I show him pictures of it and he thinks it’s literally hilarious. That’s my favorite Fresh Prince outfit by far.”
Credits
Text Emily Manning
Photography Columbine Goldsmith
Styling Djuna Bel
Grooming Sandy Ganzer at Jed Root
Photography assistance John Baker
Styling assistance Taryn Shumway, Jessica Kim
Special thanks to Fawn Boardley
[The What Is Love Issue, No. 333, Fall 2014]