The Art And Style Of Cultural Evolution

“I’m really getting into the world of locking into one outfit for a project,” Trinidad James told me when we spoke last week. The artist, whose name offstage is Nicholaus Williams, had just arrived in LA on a clothing related mission. But he still made the time to talk to me about his fashion projects and the ways that clothing and costume impact his work as a writer and artist.

“I got a suit we built from scratch with a Black tailor here in LA,” Williams said. “Thrash, Thrash Bespoke on Instagram. Sartorial rock star that he is, he made me this red suit that I’ve been rocking a lot.”

The suit is featured in the video and on the cover image for his latest single, My Biggest Hater, which is out now. It is a beautiful example of tailoring, studds lining a shawl collar, candy apple red, slim cut, but roomy enough to accommodate a hoodie. It is playful and elegant in a way that feels serious, with gravitas. The musician has always been more than stylish, he is someone completely comfortable with who he is and what he likes. That confidence is invigorating.

“Definitely,” Williams said about the suit, “It’s going to be a part of the music rollout for this year. And then next year I’ll come back with something new. I wanted to do one look this time, really lock in a look for a project and for an era of music and then move to another look, compared to times where I do a lot of different looks.”

Between the suit and Williams’ unparalleled ability to accessorize, the clothing in the video adds to the feeling the song evokes, and this is similar in some ways you’ve heard me talk about costume before. But there are significant, important differences between costume in a film or series and costume in the context of what a musician wears to perform. Music is so very personal, the words Williams, as Trinidad James, bends and flexes with such astonishing dexterity, they are his words about his life and his own experiences. I was very curious to know when he felt like clothing became costume.

“When you dress well,” the artist mused, “anything could be performed in. But I think there is a big difference, with me at least, there’s a big difference, costume for me is for the stage, that’s the uniform. When you’re talking iconic, we’re talking costume. When we’re talking just everyday great style, then that’s just clothing to me.”

It’s a very interesting point, and I thought about all the icons we celebrate and remember, how much of those thoughts are taken up by the wardrobe? Because it is making contributions, absolutely.

“For me, it’s always more about where the venue is,” Williams continued. “What city, what songs I’m performing. Are these songs that feel like, oh, I need to put on the suit? Or are they songs that I feel like I could dress down some, but still be dressed up, like stage ready? We know if it’s a full show with a band, then I’m going to put on the costume.”

Trinidad James talks about clothing regularly in his verses, he’ll mention designers, garments, historic styles, the man knows a lot about clothing. I asked him how he got into it.

“I mean, I have a fashion based mind,” the musician said. “I was a stylist and I ran a men’s boutique before I got into music. My background is actually clothes, and more clothes than actual fashion. I don’t care who made it. If it looks good on me, then this is a good piece. Over the years of paying attention to vlogs and having fashion conversations with people who are well studied. There’s some people that know everything about clothes, but don’t have any. And then you got people who got a bunch of clothes and don’t know anything about the clothes they have. You meet enough of those people, you start to find the interests that you like, find the literature that you like, the fashion. Part of it is my knowledge.”

He smiled. “And then the other part of it is probably what I had on when I was doing the song. When I’m cooking up something, I’m going to use certain ingredients. It’ll be an actual theme that we’re rapping to, but fashion has to be a part of the bullet points for the overall verse.”

For the entirety of his career Williams has been known for his style, for his eye, he is an artist in more ways than one. My regular readers will know how interested I am in processes, in the many different ways there are to bring a creative idea to life. As with his music, the fashion related projects Williams works on have ties to his personal self. So how exactly does he decide which stories, which inspirations, to share in a commercial space?

“I’m pretty straight to the point,” Williams explained. “Anytime I do something the first time when it comes to design or creativity, I always try to do it from home. When I started with music, like in the All Gold Everything video, Trinidadian flags all through the video. That was something that you’d never really seen in an American video. My next big video I shot was a song called Female$ Welcome. And we shot that in Trinidad and Tobago with Jonathan Mannion. I always think about home first. And with Hommework and our partnership with Saucony, for me, it just made sense.”

“I also didn’t know what my first idea was going to be. I really sat down and thought about it. Our first Saucony collection was four shoes so I had to tell four different stories. It just made sense like, what is something I can tell four different stories about that’s going to have some type of educational pull in it, but also be fly and fashionable and at the same time, work in today’s market.”

The education part is important, and we’ll get back to that in a second.

Working in today’s market is an incredibly important consideration, and it is not something that every brand takes seriously, or even considers. To their own detriment, I might add.

“I can’t just base it off of what I like,” Williams said, and I cannot understate how correct he is about this point. Very, very rarely are designers making clothing for themselves.

“I’m not that type of person,” the artist continued. “I like what I like, I don’t care if anybody likes it, because I’ve been just doing me for so long and it’s gotten me so far. But when you make that decision to sell for others, you got to be smart and think of the happy mediums. What you like is what you like and that’s your personal opinion and style, but what the consumer is into, that’s where you do your homework to find out. And, you know, we’re not chasing trends, we’re trying to start new ways.”

The new practices, the new ideas, this is where the educational part comes back in, and to Trinidad James, it is vital, a part of the practice that matters very much. And from his efforts, the Hommewrk flagship store in Atlanta has grown into the 21st century version of an artist’s salon.

“We started the ideation of the brand in 2019,” Williams said. “We planted the seed for designing sneakers in 2018 with Saucony. And 2020 is when we got a chance to do it. The whole saying of ‘do your homework’ is something that I always say to people just in general.”

When he was in those initial planning stages, it became clear that he wanted to design pieces that would help his clients understand what they like and why they should learn more about that. Williams was reminded of his own educational experiences, which were not great. He told me that while he’d graduated, it felt close for a minute, and that most of his time at school was spent on subjects that seemed pretty irrelevant.

“School wasn’t necessarily the most interesting thing for me,” he told me. “And part of that was the way that the curriculums were taught, you know, learning things that don’t feel like what I’m supposed to be learning makes a person like me shut down, or just not be interested or consistent.”

“If I make the right clothes,” Williams said, “clothes that I know is fly and works for the consumer, it helps them build their personal style. I always say that we don’t sell clothes and shoes. We’re really selling confidence.”

“I’m not forcing a lesson or lecturing at somebody,” Williams said, and he laughed a little. “But if somebody asks, what does that year on your jacket stand for? Who is this lady in this costume? Or why is this lady on this? How did this lady get drafted to the WNBA? These are good conversation pieces for the consumer, for the person wearing this piece to kind of open up and be a little bit more vulnerable and communicative with who they are. It shows a little bit into themselves if they choose to speak on it, you know?

All of this makes sense. If the designs are interesting, innovative, and they are referencing people, movements, work, if they are conversation starters and inspire questions, then it would be hard for anyone to not learn and grow as they loved what they wore.

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