Jaden Smith knows that the Met Gala 2024 is a “special historical moment.” It’s been six years since the 25-year-old rapper/actor/Hollywood royalty last attended and he can’t wait to hit the red carpet again. “I’m super duper excited,” he says over the phone from New York. “It’s going to be amazing.”
Fresh from a fitting, Smith is gearing up for his fourth appearance at fashion’s biggest night of the year. When it came to kitting him out, there was only one option: Thom Browne. “I feel like I’ve had a really amazing relationship with Thom and the team for a really, really long time,” he says. “So when this opportunity came about, I feel like it just made a lot of sense.”
Smith and Browne, aside from sounding like a very exclusive detective agency, are a natural fit. The Grammy nominee has always gravitated towards outsized but structured fits—and no one in menswear does structure and volume quite like Thom Browne. Inspired by the designer’s own Fall 2024 collection, which, in turn, nodded to the bold drawings of French caricaturist George Goursat, Smith’s look is textbook Thom Browne. It's anarchic, but also structured, and a tight mix of denim, plaid and a quilted Oxford shirt that all touch on the designer's Americana-chaos world. Then, in the most Thom Browne move ever, there's a skirt.
To really bring the outfit to life, embroidered lily-white flowers bloom across the overcoat to reflect this year’s theme, “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion”, and the dress code, “The Garden of Time” which is a short story by J.G. Ballard that riffs on ideas of creation and its inevitable destruction.
Smith co-runs his own clothing label, MSFTSrep, so the chance to work with Browne brought out the inner designer—and inner fanboy. “I just love the ethos that he runs through all of his collections and just what he stands for,” Smith says. “He creates all of these different dos and don’ts for his outfits and what he wears—like, when he wears pants, when he doesn’t—and I really respect that. It’s something that I really admire and look up to as a designer.” And because of his appreciation for the designer, he took a hands-off approach for his Met Gala 2024 fit. “I can’t take any credit for that,” he says. “That was the Thom Browne team just going really, really, really hard for hours and hours.”
In previous years, Smith has made a lot of noise on the Met Gala red carpet; in 2018 he rocked up with a framed gold certification of his track, “Icon”, and the previous year he walked down the red carpet clutching his own freshly shorn dreadlocks. But this year is going to be a bit more low-key. Well, low-key by Jaden Smith's standards. He’s also arrived the Met Gala with his sister before too, although that, he explains, was pure coincidence. “Me and my sister just happened to be there at the same time,” he says. “But, you know, hopefully that happens again.”
Smith doesn’t have any particular ritual before the Met Gala and he is, in very Jaden Smith style, just playing it by ear. “I’m not sure who’s going to be in attendance, honestly, but I’m really excited to see who is. Hopefully I make some friends because last time was really fun.”
After a Met Gala hiatus, he knows how major it is to be back. “In the years that I’ve gone, it was pretty much my favorite event that I went to in that year,” he says. “I’m excited to just see what’s going on and just have some fun.”
This story originally appeared on British GQ with the title 'At the Met Gala 2024, Jaden Smith's pandemonium fit was all part of the plan'