HOW SLICK RICK PIONEERED THE MERGE OF LUXURY AND STREET
THE 53-YEAR-OLD RAP LEGEND IS STARTING TO GET CREDIT FOR THE COMMODITIZED STYLE HE HELPED ARCHITECT.
SLICK RICK COLLECTS mannequins. The 53-year-old rap legend, whose real name is Ricky Walters, received his first one on Christmas about 10 years ago from his wife and manager, Mandy Aragones, who thought his interest in fashion would lend itself to the apparatus. Since then he’s acquired four more and when preparing for shows or appearances — Walters doesn’t have a stylist and he never has — he dresses them up in prospective outfits.
For his shoot with WWD he wanted to re-create that process, which is a surprisingly physical undertaking. At times Walters was on the floor screwing in limbs or wrestling Clarks Wallabees onto immovable feet. Between changes he wiped away forehead perspiration with a purple wash cloth that matched the trim of his linen tank top. Walters usually steams or irons himself because he finds it therapeutic, but that day his publicist and an assistant completed the task of making linen look crisp. Every so often he would walk away from the mannequins, reassess and then make adjustments. After about an hour of this methodical routine, and the addition of a rose-gold mic and a drum machine, he was finished.
“All right, I’m done,” said Walters in his smooth drawl, which had just a hint of an English accent.
The final product had the color palette of a Matisse painting. Walters said he observes how color looks on brown skin and uses those findings for his own wardrobe. He coupled hot pink with marigold, lime green with bubblegum pink, teal with baby pink and an almost highlighter yellow with royal blue. The looks had a clear connection to Slick Rick style totems — one mannequin donned a pink eye patch and another wore a tilted Kangol-esque hat — but they also served as a mini retrospective on black style. The Adidas shell toes with fat laces and the gold rope chains harked back to the Eighties. The skullcap and rolled-up pant leg styling, which was popularized by LL Cool J, was plucked from the Nineties. And the platinum jewelry and tall T-shirts were symbols of the Aughts.
Walters could have worn these looks himself and had his picture taken, but he’s a craftsman. He’s crafted a lexicon for hip-hop with his witty lyrics and memorable melodies that have inspired other classic rap songs — he’s one of the most sampled rappers. And he’s crafted a look that’s foundational to hip-hop style, so much so that the National Museum of African American History showcases one of his fedoras and an eye patch, which he wears due to an accident with glass that blinded his right eye when he was only 18 months old.
His most obvious contribution is the way he adorns himself with ornate and gaudy jewelry. But when Walters, who was born in London and moved to the Bronx at 11, first came into public consciousness during the mid-Eighties, he presented a new mix of regality, dandyism and street that is still felt today — the double-breasted suits and heavy gold jewelry Jay-Z wore in the “Apes--t” video are descendants of Slick Rick style. This look has been commoditized for years by luxury companies without acknowledgement, but Walters said when he wore these pieces more than 30 years ago, he wasn’t looking for any.
“Nah. Nobody cared about working with the brands at the time. Everybody just wanted to be fly,” said Walters, who still has a disarming smile and diamond fronts. “You had to have some know-how to go downtown to get Gucci, Louis [Vuitton], Fendi or Prada and that represented wealth and prestige. You respected the name, but the name wasn’t carrying all of the swag you had. You didn’t wear these designers to get them to notice you. You wore it for your peeps. It was like a mating call.”
The schism between luxury brands and the communities that make them cool has started to shift. Pharrell Williams works with Chanel, Virgil Abloh is the creative director at Louis Vuitton Men’s, and earlier this year Dapper Dan opened up a Harlem atelier that’s funded by Gucci. Walters is also starting to reap the benefits of a style he devised. He’s now working with Bally, the Swiss luxury firm he name-checked in his ►