Self-Described Tastemaker A$AP Rocky Launches Collaboration with Guess

Growing up in Harlem in the ‘90s, rapper and fashion fanatic A$AP Rocky was enamored with the sportswear brand Guess. “We all were,” he says, recalling the Tupac videos and Nas lyrics that championed the triangle logo. “I wore as much of it as I could.” And while these days he is more taken with forward-thinking designers like Gosha Rubchinskiy (“this is him, straight up,” he says of the black sweatsuit he is sporting today), he couldn’t help but feel nostalgic for Guess while watching the 1993 film Menace 2 Society recently. “I’m not a designer, that’s not my desire. I just have good taste—I’m a tastemaker. And I felt it was my duty to the kids today to bring back that look.” Guess Originals x A$AP Rocky, which launches at Opening Ceremony and Union on January 30, and Guess stores nationally a couple weeks later, features a range of oversized denim jackets, skinny tees, acid-washed cropped tops, and striped crewnecks, all inspired by the archives, with slight tweaks to silhouette and color palette. “I wanted to take Guess out of its comfort zone and get it involved in something edgy, but still contemporary,” he says. “I feel like this was necessary for culture.”