Cardi B’s Wild Chanel Suit Proves Sometimes, Fashion Is More Fun Off the Red Carpet

Sometimes you just need a reminder that fashion can actually be fun, and there’s no one who can deliver that joyous reminder quite like Cardi B. The Bronx-born rapper made a surprise appearance at Kehlani’s sold-out show at Barclays Center in Brooklyn on Friday. The pair performed their 2018 collaboration “Ring,” and Cardi performed her recent single “AH HA” live for the first time. It would have been a grand musical moment in and of itself, but it was Cardi’s outfit that helped make it go viral.

The rapper walked onstage in one of the most far-out looks from Chanel’s pre-fall collection. Her look was creative director Matthieu Blazy’s psychedelic take on the French house’s classic skirt suit. Instead of classic tweed, the suit was featured a trippy black, yellow, and red pattern. Cardi took a page out of Aretha Franklin’s playbook by bringing her purse on stage, but considering her bag was a Chanel flap in a matching pattern, it deserved to be seen by the audience. The “WAP” artist wore her hair in a sleek updo with a side bun. A pair of Chanel sunglasses added the finishing touches.

The outfit almost immediately went viral online, and some fans argued that Cardi should have saved such a monumental fit for a red carpet event.

We’d argue that the fact she wore it to perform is what made it so much fun.

Often, when we see celebs in recent off-the-runway fashion, it’s in a controlled setting—a red carpet, a photo call, a magazine spread. The outfit is sent over from the brand. The star is primped and preened. They get their photo taken, then go back to their hotel suite to take off the look. The outfit is zipped up, into a garment bag, and sent back to wherever it came from (hopefully dry-cleaned somewhere along the way).

Here, we actually get to see fashion as a part of a cultural moment.

Although the look was previously worn by Dua Lipa (she was dressed in the suit to sit front-row during Chanel’s haute couture show back in January), it practically demanded a moment like this. This isn’t an outfit for the timid or overly proper. Doesn’t that skirt suit deserve to be worn by someone who’s living life to the fullest?

The moment also solidified that, with Blazy at the helm, Chanel is fun again! Before his arrival, the brand had reverted back to its ladylike primness and sacred house codes. It was hard to imagine anything designed under the previous regime making an appearance during an R&B concert in Brooklyn. Indeed, when Cardi had previously worn Chanel, it was almost always from the Karl Lagerfeld-era archives. Blazy’s take on Chanel might even suit her even better.

“Let me post my lil’ pic, I’m like ‘Ah, ha,’” Cardi raps in her new single. “Let me show off my ’fit, I’m like ‘Ah, ha.’” Exactly.