Jesus might walk on water, but Erykah Badu glides down cobblestones. “I’m sure everybody had to really focus on each step,” she says of her fellow Vogue World models, who traipsed down West 13th street last night. “And you kind of let the ancestors guide your footsteps, hoping you don’t step in the wrong crack.” There were no wrong cracks for Badu when she every-so-smoothly stepped down the catwalk last night, wearing a craft-forward combination of Bode, CDLM, ERL, as well as her Badu World accessories. Yet, it was the first time that Badu ever took the runway. “It’s kind of too soon to say exactly how I feel. I'm still experiencing it and watching it back,” says a zen Badu over the phone. “I love to participate in fashion, the industry’s idea of style, and what it looks like from year to year, season to season.”
The look—with plenty of layers and overlapping long silhouettes—could have been plucked from the singer’s own closet. The ensemble, which was styled by Alex Harrington, was composed of a delicate Bode tunic, a plaid ERL suit, a CDLM garland, and hulking platform Junya Watanabe boots. “It’s a sculpture or painting of sorts,” she says. “It’s just my own aesthetic understanding.”
Fans will also notice that the singer wore her signature hat, one of the many from her collection. “It’s a lot,” Badu said of the uncountable number of chapeaux that she owns. This one in particular was a collaboration between Badu and Gunner Foxx, a milliner based in Los Angeles who uses 19th-century techniques to age and weather his hats. Inside of Badu’s particular hat—which featured a deliciously crackled tall crown and a red bandana tied around the brim—was an affirmation. It was named Manuela Mexico, an alias for Badu. “She’s poker face, red lips, mama’s gun,” Badu says.
If guests sitting front row at Vogue World heard a jingle from her neckful of medallions, that was on purpose. Badu loves the sound of her baubles. “I love that the garments that I get to wear have sound and movement and make music. The beads and metal pieces and things that I constantly add to my wardrobe are parts of what makes me, me,” she says, “I love my clothes to sing.” And they certainly did.
