#monkeydope

@stylelikeu features Giovanni James in their latest book, True Style is What’s Underneath, available here.

“My clothes may be stylish to other people, but they are not to me. I like a refined, mangled look. I like the coming together of different worlds. If something is nice, I will destroy it organically so that it has a story and a history to it, It makes it much richer.

I’ve always been deeply in love with anything that was cool, whether it came from my caucasian or African-American side. I would mix prep with street and rock L.L. Bean in the hood and a nameplate belt buckle in suburbia. As a kid, I was the ambassador between the hood and suburbia.

I’ve been on my own since I was 13, I was homeless. With time and experience I have come to see the many blessings of that. I got to live with different families and their cultures. I realized that these different groups - Jews, Catholics, Blacks, Whites - were pretty cool and I got to examine them all. I didn’t have a specific dogma put on me. I literally have been a vessel, able to experience other people’s lives, and it has left me, in moments, identity-less and open to humanity. What I found is that being here is such a gift. Let’s do something, make something beautiful aside from just making money. We can’t take that with us.”