A Rapper Wears A Dress, Which Logically Causes Hypebeasts To Debate Overpopulation

Kid Cudi wore a dress when performing on Saturday Night Live over the weekend, partially in reference to Kurt Cobain (the print was nearly identical to an iconic Cobain look, and he also referenced his green cardigan in an earlier performance) and partially he must’ve wanted to, and partially in a press run that’s so tasteless I’m thinking it might have COVID. First things first; Cudi looked genuinely happy on stage, like he had been experimenting with how he dresses for a while and is finally hitting that sweet spot where he feels himself. And I love that for him — Kid Cudi’s joy is uniquely radiant. That should be all that matters. But … the dress was a reference to this Kurt Cobain look: 

Contrast it to Cudi’s dress, and the only similarity is the print, which is the worst part of both dresses. The shoulder strap begins to fall off halfway through the performance (also: spaghetti straps? You’re trying to make a statement, and you decided to use spaghetti straps to get your point across?), and the front bodice weirdly juts out off of his chest, as if the dress is off the rack, with only minor adjustments for Cudi’s fit. Take away the print, and there’s nearly no similarities. The Off White rendition of the dress lacks the same bite; the Cobain dress looks like it was taken out of his grandmother’s attic and still smells like mothballs, rather than looking like a prom dress for an Alabama teenager in 2013. The design looks as if it was a last minute thing, just slapping a pre-made pattern on a similar fabric and hoping no one thinks too hard about it.  

Later after the performance (and the ensuing public debates about men in dresses), Cudi announced that the dress is a part of an upcoming collection he has with Off White. Is this not gross? Harvesting the memory and legacy of a musician who very publicly battled addiction and mental health issues, all for a press run for an Off White capsule collection? It’s almost such a beautiful reference, because Cudi has been incredibly important in terms of being open about his depression and drug addiction, and has similarly battled much of it in the public eye. He’s faced his demons, and he’s always been honest about them in his music, which is why seeing him so happy performing on SNL felt so joyfully contagious. Had the dress just been a custom Off White dress and not part of a collection he stands to benefit from, it would be perfect. 

I want to defend men in dresses; it’s important to me, and although it’s cliche to say that it fights toxic masculinity, it’s borne of some truth. So each time some celebrity bricks a fit in a dress, some part of me dies. Harry Styles garnered so much publicity for his Vogue cover shoot, and that dress was ugly. Same thing with this Cudi dress. There’s probably some racial element to it all; we’re undoubtedly much harsher on Black masculinity and expression than we are on cisgendered white men, especially attractive white celebrities. And it’s all so frustrating when you can go on Instagram and see plenty of men or nonbinary people putting out infinitely better outfits without a whole PR and styling team at their disposal. 

The public reactions were most interesting on the Hypebeast website, mainly because you have to have to go through the process of creating and logging into an account specifically for Hypebeast, and I can’t imagine being that bothered about a rapper in a dress. You could almost come up with an entire school of philosophy for each comment thread.

We have the geopolitical neoconservative soothsayers; 

“I meant to say we need to be fewer people on earth [sic].” I guess Prince Phillip isn’t dead after all, he’s just in Buckingham Palace listening to “Many Men” and trying to convert people in the Hypebeast comment section to the myth of overpopulation, which I suppose makes sense, because he’s pretty much old enough to have been friends with Thomas Malthus. 

Then we have someone who is *so* close to getting the point (Not of the dress. Of allocation of resources. How did we get here again?). 

We have what Dua Lipa can only describe as “a full 180.”

We have the fashion equivalent of a libertarian, who has their eyes unwaveringly on the prize: 

Then we have the 11th Commandment, which unfortunately didn’t make it down the mountain with Moses.  

At the end of the day, Cudi looked genuinely happy on stage, with a newfound confidence in that dress, and that should be enough for everyone. But he also seemed to knowingly start a whole dialogue about men in dresses and all the bullshit takes that comes with it to get his name in the headlines, all to announce a collection with Off White. Which, again, would be fine, if he didn’t present it as a way of honoring Kurt Cobain’s legacy.