Getting ready for GQ Men of the Year 2025, the cover star talks dressing himself in his own brand Mains, going fabric shopping with his mum - a fellow MOTY attendee - and why he's not one to leave a party early
When Skepta is going out to a proper event - and GQ's Men of the Year is definitely a proper event - he's always in a suit. "It means you care about where you're going," he says from his suite at London's Corinthia hotel, leaning back in a chair in the bathroom as he gets his makeup done. "I'm sure some of the younger generation probably don't give a shit anymore. But I'm still from [that] era. If you want to respect the night, you put on a suit." Last year he was toasting cover star Central Cee; tonight he's a cover star himself, so the evening is shaping up to be "extra fun".
His suit is from his own brand, Mains. Nothing crazy: "Just a normal suit," he says. Black, and "shaped [like it's] double breasted, but it's single breasted. It's one we made from season three, from my last runway show. We just wanted to keep it really classic today." It's classic but new, because Skepta isn't in the business of repeating outfits at events he's photographed at - "not for Getty Images, nah". So the fact he's got a few seasons of his own clothes on ice at Mains' archive is handy. "I lock into the character of who I feel like on that night and just select," he says.
With watches, he's less bothered - he's got three, a couple of Rolex Sky-Dwellers, one with a rubber strap and one fully gold, and a steel Audemars Piguet Royal Oak, the last of which is for tonight. "I think I'm done with watches now," he says. "[I'm] not a super collector. I think I've covered all the scenarios [...] with those three."
Skepta knows better than most about British rap's complicated relationship with luxury: on "That's Not Me", his 2014 song that helped launch the second wave of grime, he raps about flinging his designer clothes in the bin. At that point, he felt the industry fed on the trends created by urban culture without properly acknowledging it. But things have "changed for the better", he says - such as his friend Daniel Lee, who he says gets grime culture despite coming from a different world, now being creative director at Burberry.
Dressing up properly for a big occasion might have something to do with his parents, Joseph and Ify Adenuga, who are accompanying him to the MOTY dinner and are currently downstairs on the suite's lower level, watching BBC News and resplendent in traditional Nigerian dress. He remembers Ify dragging him and his siblings off to fabric shops after school, to get material for the outfits she needed for christenings. "I'm probably realising [..] more and more every day where my love for creating clothes has come from," Skepta says. "That's what I used to see growing up all the time." And when he graduated from tagging along with his parents to christenings, there were garage raves to go to, and "being told you can't get in with trainers and you have to wear shoes", he says. "Knowing that you have to get dressed to go somewhere has just been installed in me."