Getting Dressed With Skepta

As is the way with multi-hyphenates, one creative avenue is never enough. And Skepta has more than a few.

From his roots in grime – easily becoming one of the biggest names in the biz globally – he spent last summer spinning decks as a house and garage DJ in Ibiza. As the seasons changed, so did his focus. Last September, he relaunched his fashion brand Mains with an on-schedule catwalk show. And just a few weeks into 2024, he’s releasing his directional debut, Tribal Mark, a coming-of-age short film made in collaboration with his cousin-turned-collaborator Dwight Okechukwu, under Skepta’s production company 1PLUS1 Production.

“It's exactly the same,” he says of how he approaches different creative mediums, sitting across from me in his Soho music studio a week before the film’s premiere.

“It's all attention to detail [and] referencing. The mind is a library, and when I'm making anything I always try and think of the magic. I think an element of being young and broke really helps it as well. Because when you're broke, you like stuff for the magic of it.”

Obviously, those days are long gone, but that aspirational energy has left a lasting impact.

“Sometimes, I would go to shoe shops with my mum and look at some trainers and just think, ‘Oh my god, I would run out the shop right now with this shoe, just one shoe! This is how beautiful the shoe is!’” he continues. “I always have that kind of stuff in mind when I'm creating. I want to transfer that feeling to them.”

Tribal Marks – which clearly states it isn’t a Skepta biopic at its start – relays another formative experience, following the protagonist Mark (Jude Carmichael) as he migrates from Nigeria to London and learns how to honour his heritage with life in the capital city.

“It was a piece of all of our lives – we had so many people input tiny details of the movie that we needed,” he says about the team who worked on the film. “Some people know what it was like coming over from Nigeria, some people know what it's like actually having tribal marks on their face, others know what it's like to be in prison. It was a combination of all these ideas coming into one. So essentially, there's little bits that are about my life, but the whole thing is not a biopic.”

What he can relate to are the costumes in the film, specifically the coming-of-age scenes, where he describes the fake Gucci hats and Moschino piece as “real classics” that he would wear when he was younger. He sartorially identifies with Troy (Tegasean Ubiebi) for his Y2K fashion.

“All the denim looks that we had in the [last] Mains show was what we were basing [Troy’s costumes] off. Which is probably why I like Troy's 'fit the most because he was really what I was trying to depict with that [fashion] show.”

With London Fashion Week about a month away, Skepta reflects back on last September's debut Mains show.

“I just wanted to go big to set a benchmark for how we’re going forward,” he explains. “Because I knew that whatever was the first thing that people saw after the hiatus was how people are going to judge it going forward.

Can we expect more in the future? “Maybe we might, maybe we won’t do a show ever again,” he muses. “I think we will. If we never did a show again, at least people know that [the first one was] how it came back.”

Mains’ return comes after splitting with its previous production manufacturer, and rest assured, Skepta will be tackling the brand's future how he deems fit.

“I'm not gonna do fashion [week] in Paris and try and keep up with the Joneses, I just see so many brands fall victim to that and that's why they can't keep up,” he explains. “All of the designers look stressed and tired, while everyone else at the show is having a great time. Then the designer comes out and does this little weak wave at the end, and you're like, ‘Wow, you're drained!’ When it should be fun.”

Work for the next collection has begun, as Skepta goes on to say that they’ve started on the moodboard. “My daughter's involved in this one, actually. She came out at the end of it [the last Mains show] and ran down the runway with me. She just loves stuff for the magic, you know? And it's good to have. Obviously, I'm not going to listen to everything she says, but it's nice to have a magical, honest voice around just in case you're wavering.”

At the time of the interview, Skepta is still contemplating what he’s wearing, but he mentions that he’s thinking of having “a Savile Row” moment. Over email a week later, he confirms that he’s gone for a Gieves and Hawkes suit – he wanted “the upper echelon of British society to be weaved into the story of Tribal Mark.”

No doubt there's a sprinkling of magic seasoning the look, too.

Tribal Mark will be showing at Everyman Cinemas from 26th January to 11th February.