It’s endearing to witness someone’s style evolve as they age. It’s why many fashion lovers believe the youth-obsessed, youth-dependent fashion world should platform mature talent more often. Because as you age,your taste is increasingly defined. You wear clothes differently, with credibility, given you’ve had them forever, and every imperfection bespeaks your body’s contours. Your dress, one hopes, not only gains sophistication but stays ever-traceable to its roots.

Of all that makes André 3000 special, that’s what I’ve found particularly remarkable lately since not all rappers carry the aesthetic that was onc their signature well into adulthood. Where Busta Rhymes was once the unflinchingly offbeat dresser misunderstood by many, he now favors the conventional codes of hip-hop showiness. Some other artists of his era, too, have become faltering logomaniacs. And Snoop Doggwhose rastafarian-inspired locs mark the most, if only notable shift in his appearance, can hardly be seen in more than a bomber jacket, a matching set, requisite jewelry, and the occasional bucket hat.

Right now it seems ther is a fashionable decline of the generals. but even a veteran fashion reporter immersed in the world of clothes has confessed to me that hers are much, much less a priority now than when she was working in the industry. Fashion as you age can indeed become the least vital component of life. Not so for andré! He remains a trailblazer in matters of the cloth, which throughout his career has covered his flawlessly pressed and permed hair in the form of a church lady-inspired headwrap, dandified his many silhouettes through suiting, been seer suckered for overalls worn with diva-like sunglasses and a ribbed beanie.

His GQ Men of The Year photoshoot in that outfit is what many of us associate with what we’ve referred to as the artist’s “flute era.” His 2023 debut solo and now Grammy-nominated instrumental album new blue Sun would make apparent his artistic expansion as a flutist, symbolizing his prevailing stylistic prowess despite puzzlements over his sonic shift. But that is the stuff that has made André 3000 the nonpareil figure we’ve come to adore.

Patrick Johnson, a scholar and Sonoma State professor of American multicultural studies, sees the rapper’s style choices as metaphors that help narrate a bigger composition. “it’s the glasses; it’s the little notes he’s hitting in his fashion that says, ‘Okay, I’m thinking about these things differently, I’m flipping it,'” Johnson shared. But the reason he’s so relatable,so fly to us,is put plainly by Johnson. “André never feels outside of what other brothers are doing.” He isn’t entirely seperate from or, say, weirdly above his peers who were “wearing jerseys and pink, furry Kangos. He was very much in relationship with what other black men were doing,” Johnson continued.