A$AP Ferg’s New Clothing Collab With Young & Reckless Inspired By Birdman, 50 Cent And Dipset

This past Saturday marked the official release of the A$AP Ferg x Young & Reckless collaboration. In celebration of the release, Ferg and Young & Reckless owner Drama held a special meet-and-greet at the PacSun store in Long Island, New York. Upon his arrival to the store front, the Trap Lord was greeted by several of his fans, who were lined up in front of the Roosevelt Field retail spot, hours before the official start of the meet-and-greet. Along with getting a chance to purchase items from the new Ferg x Young & Reckless collection, fans got a chance to get an autograph, and snap a pic with the A$AP Crew member.

The A$AP Ferg x Young & Reckless collaboration is exclusively for PacSun, and consists of seven garments that are all envisioned by Ferg. The collection was officially released at PacSun stores nationwide on Saturday, Oct. 4, and in their online shop today Oct. 6. XXL caught up with A$AP Ferg a few minutes before the start of his meet-and-greet to find out more about the collaboration with Young & Reckless, the current state of streetwear, his upcoming album, and his love for Selena. —Roger Krastz

XXL: How did the collaboration between you and Young & Reckless come about?
A$AP Ferg: Well, I’m really good friends with Drama and they’ve been trying to get something together for me for a while as far as a collaboration. And we finally we made it happen since I had some free time because I was touring a lot. I was able to go to L.A. and sit down with them personally and tell them my visions. We went through a bunch of stuff and the whole line looked completely different than it does now, because we were just going through a bunch of ideas. So we had a couple of meetings before we decided what we actually wanted to go with, and then once I started designing stuff and sending it in we went through swatches, and this is what we got.

What was your favorite part of designing this collection?
Just memories. One of the shirts is inspired by Birdman. In the “What Happened To That Boy?” video, Birdman had a shirt where he had his grill and his earrings showing. It was like a collage on his shirt and I wanted to recreate that, but in my own way for the collection. So that’s a collage face t-shirt. And then if you look inside my album booklet it’s like the same type of pictures, and we just took those images and put them on the shirt.

The purple camo is inspired by Purple City which is Dipset street team. I always used to see them in Harlem selling CD’s, giving out posters and just promoting Dipset when I was growing up, so I always used to see them wearing purple camo and pink and all of that. So that’s where my inspiration behind the bucket hat and jersey came from. The bulletproof vest, that’s my signature. A lot of people saw me wear the bulletproof leather vest when I first came out on stage and that’s like a montage of 50 and just everybody from back in the days that used to wear the leather bulletproof vest. So I wanted to recreate the leather bulletproof vest and make it fun and stylish at the same time.

What was it like to work with Young & reckless on the collab? And can we expect another one down the line?
Definitely. They’re so cool, very down to earth, and I can see why so much people really praise them, and how they can pull in important people and figures in the game. It's nothing but love with the. And I think it surpasses the brand Young & Reckless; it's just really the people that’s behind it, and I think that they all good people that want to put out good product. What I wanted to bring to the table in this collection was my outlook on style, and how I can provide the service of just bringing my taste to their brand.

What are your thoughts on the current state of streetwear?
Streetwear is dope. As far as the whole A$AP [crew] and the street kids that are coming out now, we’re bridging the gap between upscale and streetwear. So you have a lot of streetwear brands that are automatically doing dope things and they’re experimenting with higher priced threads. It's just a whole look now and it’s a lifestyle, and they're experimenting with more leathers and more premium materials.

You posted a picture on your Instagram with Madonna recently. Can you tell us what’s in the works with her?
[Laughs] I can’t really talk too much on that, but she’s a really good friend of mine, and just know that she’s about to bring some heat.

How did your love for Selena develop?
That was just me being a child and seeing the Selena movie and seeing how beautiful she was. So it was just like love at first movie sight. [Laughs] I thought Jennifer Lopez was Selena at first, so I actually fell in love with Jennifer Lopez first, and then I did research on Selena and found out she won Grammys for a Spanish album, and then an English album. She was huge and she was a pop icon. She had her own salon and boutique and everything like that. So I just respected her grind and how she came from nothing and made herself something.

What do you think is the worst fashion trend ever in hip-hop?
I would have to say the whole overlap long leather dress that looked like a flap or something. Those type of styles that everybody was walking around looking like Liu Kang. I never got into that whole flap thing, the whole dress with the leather pants under. I never got into that.

Filed Under: 50 Cent, A$AP Ferg, Birdman, collection, Dipset, drama, young & reckless

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