But just as his musical trajectory started with him making songs alone in his room and has expanded to feature collaborations with world-class artists, he has recently decided it’s time to enlist others to help him with his look. Mr. Collier is working on a currently-under-wraps collaboration with an international brand that will be introduced later this year. And for the “Djesse” tour, he worked with the stylist Marta del Rio, who also creates looks for Lady Gaga, Billie Eilish and Tinashe, on his performance wardrobe.
“He’s so advanced in his musical maturity, but he’s just starting to experiment with fashion,” Ms. del Rio said. “He communicates joyfulness and enjoyment, and we wanted to maintain that essence with the clothes.”
At the beginning of their working relationship, Mr. Collier had a conversation with Ms. del Rio about sustainability in fashion, which he described as “a world full of possibilities to explore” that he is in some ways “just waking up to.” A onetime member of his school’s environmental club, Mr. Collier has started introducing climate awareness into his music-making process. He recently installed solar panels to power his music room, and he’s donating roughly 10 percent of net profits from merchandise sales on his current tour to Earth Percent, a nonprofit that raises funds for climate action.
Mr. Collier’s most responsible dressing habit, though, is one that sets him apart from many of his social media-raised peers. While many young creatives associate self-expression with never being seen online wearing the same thing twice, he frequently wears his clothes again and again. A beloved striped Missoni knit, for example, appears in multiple music videos, at press events and in home videos.
“I just really like it and wear it all the time,” he said, nodding at a group of street musicians whose eyes lit up in recognition as he walked by. “It’s a simple thing, but a lot of my friends and people in the industry will do something new for every show and event.”
Though some of Mr. Collier’s fans have expressed a desire to imitate his look — there are Instagram accounts and Reddit threads devoted to documenting his style and parsing where to shop for pieces like his — he’s happy that his first concert in New York was attended by a crowd whose garb mostly didn’t mirror his own. More than anything, he said, he wants to inspire people to be their truest selves.
“Certain people will wear a hat that looks like mine or something, but I get much more excited about people being really expressive as to who they are,” he said. “I love seeing people be themselves. I don’t want people to be like me. I want people to be like them. It’s that permission-giving that means the most.”
