The internet is salivating over A$AP Rocky again: the rapper has just been acquitted on two counts of assault with a semi-automatic firearm. The jury deliberated for just three hours yesterday before reaching the final verdict. It’s official: the only count on which he’s found guilty is looking “entirely too f***ing cool at court”.
Not my words: Esquire’s. But I echo the sentiment. The charge for this “misdemeanour” is pure adoration: his wife Rihanna is ecstatic. Had he been found guilty of an actual crime, Rocky would have faced 24 years in prison. That’s 24 Met Galas without the world’s suavest man.
The rapper’s courtroom strategy — or rather, styling — is something of a masterclass for those in court (Luigi Mangione, take note). Turning up in to your trial in perfectly tailored Saint Laurent? Very demure, very innocent, it turns out. The French fashion house certainly seemed to think so, anyway, and re-shared pictures of Rocky entering the courtroom in a press release.
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Rocky is hardly the first celebrity to make the courtroom their catwalk. When Winona Ryder was charged with grand theft and vandalism for stealing $5,000 worth of Marc Jacobs clothing in 2001, she turned up to the courtroom dressed in the very outfit she was accused of shoplifting: a Little Bo-Peep style midi dress, faux retro collar, and Mary Janes. In 2015, Jacobs made her the face of his brand: one woman’s kleptomania is another man’s marketing schtick.
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Fashion and the courtroom have long been natural bedfellows. The former is about seduction, presentation, making a case for yourself; the latter is about dishing out just desserts. Both, in short, are about serving. In recent years, high-profile cases like Wagatha Christie and Gwyneth Paltrow’s have made this link more obvious than ever.
Call it the court of public opinion or simply trial-by-beauty: research established long ago that less attractive defendants are more likely to be found guilty than their well turned out counterparts. Many on the internet believe Luigi Mangione – the 26-year-old Country Club heir charged with the murder of Brian Thompson, the former CEO of UnitedHealthcare – could get off scot free simply by wooing the jury with his good looks. Fashion – whose role is to enhance and sublimate appearance – could, by that same token, sway a jury and decide a sentence.
Sometimes, a good lawyer just isn’t enough: you need a good stylist, too. And in celebrity trials, the right styling can be the difference between a career-end and a renaissance. When retired optometrist Terry Sanderson was found at fault for comparative negligence after skiing into Gwyneth Paltrow on the slopes of Deer Valley (he initially alleged it was the other way around and it was she who’d crashed into him), what made the trial such a media event wasn’t just its ludicrous nature (so entertaining it spawned a hit London musical) or the fact of Paltrow’s A-list status. It was the fact that she was styled to perfection.
Her performance (“I lost half a day of skiing”), mannerisms (the pursing of the lips) and costume (a paean to stealth wealth that seemed to say, “this isn’t the outfit of someone who’d ever lose control of their skis”) seemed to work their charm on the jury and earned Paltrow her best press in years. It also sent sales soaring for The Row, Loro Piana and her very own G label by Goop. Paltrow herself is now the face of… Saint Laurent.
Stealth wealth: Paltrow’s courtroom style was a masterclass in quiet luxury
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For an example closer to home, take the Wagatha Christie trial (which, like Paltrow’s, spawned a hit West End show). On the day Rebekah Vardy – accused by Coleen Rooney of selling her secrets to the press – turned up to the Royal Courts of Justice in a £1,780 Prada dress and £1,245 McQueen blazer, Rooney opted for a humble, £32 number from Zara. Vardy dressed herself up as wronged and unforgiving; Rooney, who seemed to have a better grasp of the trial’s impact on popular culture and what it would mean for her reputation in the long term, went with something more wholesome. Seemingly, it worked. Rooney won the case and earned £1.5m for appearing on I’m A Celebrity last year. (Although Vardy won it for me, personally, with the £2,095 yellow co-ord suit by Alessandra Rich she wore to the last day of the trial.)
It’s not one size fits all
There’s no hard-and-fast rule when it comes to courtroom styling. American juries are probably more likely to take to stealth wealth than the Brits (we tend to prefer stealth, full stop). But broadly speaking, different cases command different outfits. When you’re a celebrity – particularly one whose brand lies somewhere under the amorphous “lifestyle” umbrella – what you wear to trial can serve to deepen and extend your image just as it can help to thwart and undercut it.
Sometimes, that’s the right strategy: as when Nigella Lawson ditched her classic sartorial seductions for a more demure black outfit while appearing in court twelve years ago amid a trial against her ex-husband’s former aides.
Nigella Lawson arrives at Isleworth Crown Court on December 4, 2013
Elisabetta and Francesca Grillo were accused in 2013 of embezzling hundreds of thousands of pounds from Charles Saatchi’s bank account via staff credit cards. In a pre-trial hearing, the sisters told the Judge that Lawson had permitted them to go HAM on Bond Street in return for concealing her drug use from Saatchi (they alleged she was using cocaine). Commenting on Lawson’s choice of outfit for her cross-examination, the Mail Online ruefully described the look as “sober”.
The Grillo sisters ended up winning the trial: but it was Lawson who won the affection of the public. Similarly, if Rocky loses his case, he’ll certainly have won our hearts. The right suit can flip a narrative: search Google for “A$AP Rocky f-” and the first result is not “A$AP Rocky facing jail” (that’s currently second) but rather, “A$AP Rocky fashion”. As it should be.
I hope, for the sake of Rocky’s family and all future Met Galas, that he’ll be out of the wilderness as quickly as his namesake implies. And if he has to do community service, let hope he pulls a Naomi and serves the whole thing in couture.
