Jaden Smith doesn’t care about gender norms and will gladly play the guinea pig for it.
After posing in a skirt for Louis Vuitton’s women’s wear campaign in January, Smith, 17, faced backlash. But that’s a price he’s willing to pay. “The world is going to keep bashing me for whatever I do, and I’m going to keep not caring … I’m going to take most of the blows for my fellow MSFTS [his fashion brand, and a play on ‘misfits’ or cultural outsiders],” he told Nylon for their August issue. “So, you know, in five years when a kid goes to school wearing a skirt, he won’t get beat up and kids won’t get mad at him.”
The Louis Vuitton brand ambassador, whose parents are Will and Jada Pinkett Smith, isn’t just thinking five years down the line, either. “I’m taking the brunt of it so that later on, my kids and the next generations of kids will all think that certain things are normal that weren’t expected before my time,” he continued.
What’s behind Smith’s convictions? “You just have to believe in yourself, you know,” he said of his unique perception.
It’s all part of Smith’s quest to make society truly think about sex-specific garments. “I feel like people are kind of confused about gender norms,” he said in the April issue of British GQ Style. “I feel like people don’t really get it. I’m not saying that I get it. I’m just saying that I’ve never seen any distinction. I don’t see man clothes and women clothes, I just see scared people and comfortable people.”
When it comes to making a difference in the world, his sights are set even beyond the fashion industry. “I’m really working toward just fixing the whole planet Earth. I really just want to create a utopia on this planet,” he told GQ Style. “I really want to make it so that people don’t have to die to pay bills and just work to survive. So that they can work to actually live and do the things that they love to do.”
What do you think of Jaden’s boundary-defying fashion sense?