Alex da Kid Unveils Luxury Brand
By Alexander aims to make the creative process part of the brand experience.
It’s an only-in-Los Angeles story.
U.K.-born, L.A.-based music producer Alexander Grant (aka Alex da Kid) has helped create chart-topping hits including Imagine Dragons’ “Radioactive” and Eminem and Rihanna’s “Love the Way You Lie,” been nominated for Grammys and dated Halle Berry.
Now he’s making his fashion debut with “by Alexander,” a line that aims to make the creative process part of the brand experience, down to the replica of his living room and media studio he’s constructing for his new store opening at 317 North Rodeo Drive in 2021.
“People will be able to see how we make things, how we make music, how I shout at my creative director — they’ll see the entire process unfold — that’s all part of what makes the clothes,” he said, adding, “We actually got the space one week before coronavirus, but Bernard [Arnault], who owns the building, was nice enough to renegotiate my rent.”
In the meantime, Grant’s first clothing drop is a 19-piece unisex collection called “000 Channel Black” that is his take on elevated sportswear with tomboyish silhouettes (a tailored merino wool blazer, oversize sherpa lamb sweatshirt, paneled sweat pants, cropped leather puffer, and cutout pocket washed denim jeans highlighting the hip bone as erogenous zone). It won’t be wholesaled, and will only be available on his web site and in his forthcoming store. Prices range from $595 to $2,995.
Model Irina Shayk appears alongside the designer in the first brand campaign, which was styled by Rihanna’s image architect
Mel Ottenberg. For men’s wear, actor Gary Busey (yes, that Gary Busey) is featured in the collection’s outerwear, joggers and oversize T-shirt. “He’s a lunatic, an icon in my eyes,” said Grant, acknowledging the divergent styles of his female famed model and male “lunatic” collection muses.