Following Lil Nas X’s release of his debut album, Montero, with all of its hits and imagery, the rapper has announced that he and fashion house Jean Paul Gaultier have released a limited edition collaboration. Nas X and Gaultier, fashion’s “enfant terrible,” teamed up to re-launch an old classic from the archives, with a new aesthetic twist paying homage to Nas X’s biblical aesthetic.
The collaboration includes a long-sleeved mesh top which retails for $390, which features Nas X’s devil and angel imagery in the most maximalist and opulent way, with no square inch of the shirt left blank. Gold lettering displays Gaultier’s and Nas X’s namesake, with Nas X making his appearance on the front with angel wings and a halo surrounded by flying demon cherubs. Still following along?
Jean Paul Gaultier said in a statement announcing the collaboration that the mesh top is “a reinterpretation of the iconic second-skin mesh top from Spring-Summer 2001 collection incorporating Lil Nas X’s camp aesthetic.”
In typical Nas X fashion, there are exactly 666 editions of the shirt available for purchase. This isn’t the first time Nas has pulled a stunt like this. When his hit single “Montero (Call Me By Your Name)” came out ahead of the album of the same name, Nas X released 666 editions of a Nike shoe, which included a vial of human blood, without the explicit permission of the shoe brand. It resulted in a subsequent lawsuit from Nike, and an order from the company that MSCHF, the manufacturer of Nas X’s shoe collaboration, destroy the shoes.
Nas X has received much criticism from conservative media outlets, claiming that the rapper is “pushing an agenda” and “corrupting the youth.” But at the end of the day, appropriation of biblical imagery is sure to garner attention, and Nas X is just playing the game in an age when controversy gets clicks. Plus, it doesn’t hurt that he looks good while doing it.
