**Aside from Christianity and religious themes, you’ve said before that your reference points with Fear Of God will always be ’80s and ’90s skinhead and grunge culture. In what ways did you explore these themes in the new collection? **

Those will always be my inspirations, but what I’m putting out now needs to be modern and appropriate. For me, living in Los Angeles, I miss wearing my overcoats in Chicago and I miss being able to layer the way I did. So in the First Collection, we did hoodies but with short-sleeves, or short-sleeved, Al Foley-inspired crewnecks. Now, we’ve taken it a step further. I love how women wear these short-sleeved overcoats, very Céline-type overcoats that almost look like robes. I love how you can have the short arm and then a layering piece underneath it. I thought it would be dope to flip that in a really masculine way.

So you sort of feel like you’re combining these relad, high-fashion Céline looks with these sharper lines that people associate with grunge and skinhead culture.

Exactly. I mean, look at John Bender from The Breakfast Club. No matter what year you watch that movie, he doesn’t look out of date, he doesn’t look not cool. He could wear that at any time, and I think there’s some magic to that. I love the way he had the thermal against the plaid shirt and the plaid shirt was cut. On top of that, you see him with a very Céline-like overcoat at the beginning and end of the movie. For me, I was like, "Wow! That’s exactly what I want to say. That’s exactly how I feel." Growing up, whether it was Kurt Cobain, or Al Foley, or John Bender, these characters were super dope to me. And they still are today. It’s like being a black kid in an all-white high school. You don’t fit in anywhere, so you’re forced to create your own language and own space. I think that’s kind of what Fear of God is.

**Was that the case for you growing up? Were you the only African-American kid in a mostly white school? **

Yeah, for the most part. I’m not going to say I was a loner and didn’t have friends, but I never really felt comfortable with all the black kids who grew up around only black kids, and then I never quite fit, but I felt like I fit more in with the white kids. My style borrows from both of those cultures, and maybe even leans more towards that white grungy kid.

In this collection, it was surprising to see nautical stripes. Those seem like more traditional menswear than anything you’ve released before. What inspired them?

Those are just, like, Kurt Cobain-inspired. As I dig deeper into reference pieces of that era, stripes are definitely super heavy. If you asked me a year or so ago if I would have used stripes I would highly doubt it, but I’m super excited that I decided to add that to the collection. I love the way the long striped pieces peek out from underneath a hoodie or another T-shirt. I like the pop that it gives without it being a pop of color or print. Those things wouldn’t be consistent with what I’m trying to communicate.

Where did the elongated silhouettes and layering come from? Every piece in the collection seems like it demands another layer to make the whole look come together.

When I leave the house, I want to be comfortable and chic, but appropriate. Maybe I’m going to the gym, or maybe I have a lunch meeting, but I want to be appropriate for either one of those things. Layering kind of helps to give a silhouette that makes what you’re wearing more than just shorts and a T-shirt. It says to people, "Yeah, he obviously cares how he looks, but doesn’t actually care." This is California, where people have mastered the art of looking like they don’t care. But all of my biggest style inspirations like John Bender and Kurt Cobain looked like they didn’t really care. And so much about fashion isn’t even about the clothes, it’s about the person. The models I used for this lookbook, the same models I’ve used for all three seasons, I feel like I could have shot the photos just of their eyes and faces and I would have been able to get the same message across. A lot of what makes something cool is about the person, and something that looks good on someone really dope isn’t going to look good on everyone. The hard part is translating that to clothing in a way that won’t make people do exactly what you’re not trying to do.