Erykah Badu was the recipient of the 2024 Fashion Icon award at the CFDA Awards on Monday evening.
For the occasion, Badu wore a look by Thom Browne, chairman of the CFDA. Described by the brand, the outfit entailed an “hourglass all-in-one chesterfield, sportcoat, embroidered cardigan, pleated skirt and trouser in black cashmere, 3 ply mohair, wool flannel and silk faille with an oversized jumpsuit suit in black 3 ply mohair with black grosgrain tipping and wingtip pumps in black patent leather.”
Reached by phone earlier in the day on Monday, Badu was having trouble describing the look.
“I don’t know how to describe it,” she said. “It’s a Thom Browne suit, a collab between Thom Browne and Chrishabana,” she said, adding that Chrishabana, who custom made her headpiece, worked with an “AI rendering”
“It’s Thom Browne’s suit from this season’s selection, and I just wanted to create something sculptural around it,” she explained.
Badu and her team arrived in New York around 1 p.m. on Sunday “and from there we hit the ground running,” she said, “measuring, finishing last minute things.”
She received word that she was chosen to receive the Fashion Icon award through her agency, The Chambers Group, and was still trying to process it.
“It is always good to be recognized by your peers for your art. And I just feel grateful that as an artist I had an opportunity to feel that,” she said.
She describes her style as “always evolving.”
“Everything around me is changing and growing. My style is me. So as I feel and grow and move and change and fail and succeed, it’s always a reflection of what I feel,” she said.
As for who she thinks of as a fashion icon?
“People like Albert Einstein. He had one really well-made suit, one really well built pair of shoes and he just duplicated it every single day because he looked good in it. He felt good in it. So he didn’t have to think about that. He already knew he was fresh,” she said. “So the rest of his mind space was spent doing what he wanted to do.”
In addition to the Thom Browne look at the CFDAs, Badu has worked with many other big name fashion designers – yet named a smaller Brooklyn-based designer when asked what designers inspire her.
“His name is Epperson. When I first started as a recording artist, I lived in Brooklyn and he was a designer who was from Brooklyn who was making waves because of his deconstruction and and hanging strings and deliberate symmetrical mistakes, happy mistakes. And I like the fact that he took risks,” Badu said. His approach has always been to feel it with your hands and whatever your hands do. “
