Jaden Smith’s inclusion in the Louis Vuitton spring/summer 16 womenswear campaign has already drawn support from sister Willow and a ringing endorsement from Vuitton designer Nicolas Ghesquiere, who says the 17-year-old “represents a generation that has assimilated the codes of true freedom, one that is free of manifestos and questions about gender.” Now Jaden’s superstar father Will Smith has spoken enthusiastically about his son’s forward-thinking and gender-fluid approach to dressing.
During an interview on BBC Radio 1Xtra, the Men in Black actor was asked how he feels about Jaden modeling clothes that may traditionally have been ascribed to women. “There’s a really powerful internal quality as an artist that as parents we encourage,” he replied. “You gotta get on the edge. You have to try things [and] you have to be comfortable doing things that people don’t agree with. You have to be comfortable doing things that you could fail [at].”
“Jaden is 100 percent fearless, he will do anything,” Will Smith continued admiringly. “As a parent it’s scary, it’s really terrifying, but he is completely willing to live and die by his artistic decisions and he just doesn’t concern himself with what people think.” During the interview, Smith also explains how he and wife Jada Pinkett-Smith try to parent 15-year-old Willow differently but equally to her two brothers, and shares a cute anecdote about the way Willow likes to tests the limits of her weekend curfew. Watch the full interview below.