Kid Cudi wears an Off-White dress on SNL, in tribute to Kurt Cobain

Last night (April 10), Kid Cudi featured as the musical guest on Saturday Night Live, playing two tracks from his latest album, Man on the Moon III: The Chosen. What really stole the show, though, were some meaningful outfit choices from the rapper and We Are Who We Are star.

Most strikingly, Cudi donned a floral Off-White dress for a performance of “Sad People”, cementing his status as a longtime Virgil Abloh fave. For his other song (“Tequila Shots”) meanwhile, he wore a grungy green cardigan with a t-shirt bearing late SNL cast member Chris Farley.

Taking to Twitter on Sunday, the rapper revealed that the dress will also feature as part of an upcoming collaboration with Off-White. While finer details surrounding the collection remain sparse, it marks the latest in Abloh’s ongoing flirtation with the music world – just last month 21 Savage was revealed as the face of Louis Vuitton’s Spring capsule.

Of course, the references to Kurt Cobain — who died by suicide the same week in 1994 — didn’t go unnoticed. Fans have acknowledged the Off-White look as a nod to Cobain’s floral dresses, worn at Nirvana gigs, awards shows, and (perhaps most famously) on a David Sims-shot cover of The Face in 1993. 

"I told him I wanted to show love to Kurt w a floral print sundress and this man made a masterpiece. Thank You @virgilabloh ur a fuckin genius!! Love you man we did it!!!," Kid Cudi wrote on Twitter over the weekend

The cardigan, on the other hand, is a pretty clear tribute to Cobain’s mohair knitwear, worn during the band’s iconic MTV Unplugged session just five months before the singer’s death. In 2019, the original cardigan was auctioned for a record-breaking $334,000, proving its enduring appeal as a piece of music history.

Kid Cudi has previously performed on SNL alongside Kanye West in 2018, as part of the pair’s collaborative Kids See Ghosts project (which itself samples Kurt Cobain’s “Burn the Rain”).

View images from Kid Cudi’s most recent SNL appearance, and watch his live performance above. Revisit that time Harry Styles slipped into a Gucci dress for Vogue in the gallery below.