The Inside Story Behind A$AP Rocky’s ‘Comfortable’ Trial Style

This is an edition of the newsletter Show Notes, in which Samuel Hine reports from the front row of the fashion world. Sign up here to get it free.

Last month, A$AP Rocky called his longtime stylist Matthew Henson with an urgent request: He needed 20 suits. And he needed them tomorrow.

The rapper, actor, and all-around style dynamo creates men’s fashion magic every time he graces a red carpet or sits front row at a runway show. But this time, Rocky was preparing for a high-stakes appearance of a much different kind. After months of delays, he would be standing trial in Los Angeles on two felony counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm, charges stemming from a 2021 incident involving his former friend and collaborator, A$AP Relli.

“I’m like, ‘OK, so what are you thinking?’” Henson recalled in an interview on Wednesday afternoon. “And he said, ‘I want it to be all suits, and I need a different look every day.’” Henson immediately went shopping.

SANC, SCLA

On Tuesday, Rocky was acquitted on both counts, capping off an at times surreal trial that featured bigshot lawyer battles, several Rihanna appearances, and a minor dustup over the definition of “AWGE” (from his seat at the defense table, Rocky implored witness A$AP Twelvyy not to spill the acronym behind his intentionally enigmatic creative collective).

But it was his suits that defined the legal drama.

Over the course of the nearly month-long proceedings, Rocky’s creative tailoring stole the show. One day he wore a Gainesbourgian double-breasted suit by Saint Laurent accented with a silk scarf tied in a jaunty bow. Another day, the Giorgio Armani aficionado channeled ’80s Wall Street by cinching a belted gabardine trench coat over a lush camel blazer and flowy dark trousers (all also by Saint Laurent). Courthouses are about the only place in American life where the necktie remains de rigueur, but for at least two sessions Rocky took an even more formal tack, donning glossy peak-lapel dinner jackets as if the judge was hosting a candlelit gala rather than a cross examination.