Designed by Peter Dundas, Mary J. Blige’s SuperBowl look will be available as an NFT.
Football’s annual championship is America’s biggest sporting event and a coup de gras for the musicians who take the stage during its halftime show. Watched by more than a hundred million people, the mini-concerts that fill the space between intervals have become the place where performers unveil their most outlandish and innovative spectacles. After iconic solo sets by Madonna, Beyoncé, Prince, and more, this year’s game features a coterie of music legends, chief among them.
To do that, Dundas considered the hallmarks of Blige’s public persona and wardrobe. In her decades-spanning career, she’s taken on a variety of looks, from the baseball jerseys and doorknocker earrings of herera to the grownup glamor seen in her latest video for “Good Morning Gorgeous.” Working with Blige’s longtime stylist Jason Rembert, the designer took a deep dive into her fashions and found some recurring themes. “With celebrities, especially icons like Mary, I think about their signatures.
While workshopping ideas, Dundas looked to luminaries from art and music. The effortless elegance of jazz bandleader Cab Calloway immediately came to mind as did the monumental sculptures of French artist Niki de Saint Phalle. “Calloway had this unapologetic glamor that I feel connected to,” says Dundas. “His outfits always had these flourishes, especially in Janet Jackson’s ‘Alright’ video where he has a cameo.
The final look alludes with its snow leopard pattern and dramatic vibe alludes to the past, but its introduction is entirely modern; after Blige steps onstage at the game, versions of her outfit and those worn by her dancers will be available as an NFT, a partnership with Dress X. “This is the next step in technology, and I want my fashion to be a part of that,” he says. “[Online] you can be anything you’d want to be, wear whatever you like, and let your imagination travel as far as it can go.
Of course, there’s one person who won’t need a high-speed connection to enjoy Dundas’s custom creations. “I wanted to look incredible and be comfortable. Fly sexy and hot but comfortable,” shared Blige before the show. “It means so much to perform at the Super Bowl; it’s such a triumph and a win. [This] captured everything; the colors that I love coupled with the sparkle that I’ve grown into.”