{"id":298875,"date":"2026-02-15T05:05:17","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T05:05:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/298875\/"},"modified":"2026-02-15T05:05:17","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T05:05:17","slug":"its-like-putting-out-an-album-backstage-at-aap-rockys-latest-awge-fashion-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/298875\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018It\u2019s Like Putting Out an Album\u2019: Backstage at A$AP Rocky\u2019s Latest AWGE Fashion Show"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is an edition of the newsletter Show Notes, in which Samuel Hine reports from the front row of the fashion world. Sign up here to get it free.<\/a><\/p>\n

A$AP Rocky, Chanel ambassador, has rarely been seen in public wearing anything but Matthieu Blazy-designed blazers for the past few months. But on Thursday evening, the rapper, actor, and fashion impresario was comparatively dressed down in a zip-up hoodie he designed for AWGE, the clothing line that sprung out of his record label and creative agency in 2024.<\/p>\n

Rocky was in a warehouse-like basement a stone\u2019s throw from New York\u2019s City Hall, prepping for his third AWGE runway show, set to be held upstairs the following night. The 37-year-old paced back and forth along rails heaving with AWGE-branded clothes, and stroked his chin as he reviewed models\u2019 outfits. At one point, he disappeared into a changing room and emerged wearing khaki trousers covered in cargo pockets; he had decided to lend his own AWGE sweatpants for one of the looks.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like putting out an album,\u201d he said of his eleventh-hour tinkering. \u201cIt\u2019s not done until it\u2019s out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Until he finally dropped<\/a> the long-awaited Don\u2019t Be Dumb last month, Rocky spent years batting away \u201cWhere is the album?\u201d questions and fighting leaks of unreleased music. So you can see why he\u2019s been thinking a lot about process. \u201cPeople don’t appreciate process anymore,\u201d Rocky said. \u201cThey don’t trust the process, and I just want to expose it.\u201d Rocky was planning to recreate the fine-tuning I was witnessing here during the show, with styling assistants and glam teams doing their finishing touches on the cast in the middle of the catwalk. \u201cWe want the viewers to see all of the revisions we\u2019re making up until the very last second.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rocky has been making even bigger changes to the AWGE formula in the lead-up to the brand\u2019s New York Fashion Week debut. The first two shows, held in Paris<\/a>, were extensions of the punk-ish and politically-charged aesthetic Rocky was exploring at the time; the most recent collection, titled \u201cObligatory Fashion,\u201d riffed on the uniforms of courtrooms and the criminal justice system, a reference to the legal drama he overcame in early 2025<\/a>. Though there was plenty to like about the clothes, which reflected Rocky\u2019s immense influence in crashing conceptual European fashion with fine tailoring and streetwear, so far AWGE has yet to hit stores.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey say the third time\u2019s the charm, right?\u201d Rocky said with a smile. From what I could see backstage, this go-round was less about narrative and more about teasing out a real wardrobe from his current style proclivities. He cited the contemporary obsession with quiet luxury and wellness, and his own curious interest in \u201caquaticwear.\u201d \u201cThat\u2019s untapped territory,\u201d he declared. \u201cI wanted to challenge us.\u201d It struck me as a remix that only a style oracle as confident as Rocky<\/a> could pull off.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a bunch of trials and tribulations that I needed to get out of the way before I could really soar\u201d with the brand, he said. \u201cNow I can express myself freely and creatively. Emphasis on the word free.\u201d<\/p>\n

But still\u2014aquaticwear? The racks of made-in-Italy tailoring looked promising (Rocky is as responsible as anyone<\/a> for the resurgence of \u201980s power suiting), but I wasn\u2019t sure what to make of the liquidy latex shirts and piles of aqua sock Puma<\/a> slides and swim-goggle-like Ray-Bans<\/a> in the mix.<\/p>\n

\"Image<\/p>\n

The scene at AWGE Fall 2026.<\/p>\n

Gilbert Flores\/Getty Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This is an edition of the newsletter Show Notes, in which Samuel Hine reports from the front row…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":298876,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[28914,93,61,60,278,12474,54987,2125,513,514],"class_list":{"0":"post-298875","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-aap-rocky","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-music","13":"tag-new-york-fashion-week","14":"tag-show-notes","15":"tag-style","16":"tag-textbelowcentergridwidth","17":"tag-web"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298875\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/298876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}