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Before he was an international style sensation and designers were sending him runway pieces, Bad Bunny was sneaking into his father's closet to borrow his special church shirt, taking trips to the mall with his mom, buying sunglasses at the gas station, and getting inspiration from the Cartoon Network. (OK, maybe he still does the last two.) In his own words, this is a look at how a boy from the Puerto Rican countryside upended social paradigms about masculinity and brought some fun (hair, makeup, nails, and fashion fun) to the men's department — and the world.
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Univision's "Premios Juventud" (2017)
"This was the yellow nail look that everyone asks me about, the first time I painted my nails. I want to say that it had always been in the back of my mind to paint my nails, and that day I was sitting in my hotel room feeling really happy and decided to do it. We bought the nail polish at a salon on Lincoln Road."
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Latin Billboard Awards (2018)
"My jaw hurts just looking at this picture. I'd just had my teeth done — I've always regretted it — and the veneers were wrong, so the grill didn't fit properly. Look at me trying to close my mouth! But I did love that Gucci suit. Back then there was no official stylist, it was just us going to stores to get stuff."
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Latin Billboard Awards (2018)
"This suit was badass. Also by Gucci. But by then, Gucci was sending me pieces to wear. The glasses are always decided at the last minute. I'll grab a few pairs to try on when I'm fully dressed and ask everyone's opinion. Sometimes they are designer glasses, but other times they are sunglasses I found at a thrift store or at a gas station."
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American Airlines Area (2018)
"Shirt Gucci, 30-pound coat by Balenciaga, and the pants were by an LA-brand called Trippy, I think. This was a concert in Miami. For that first tour, I would travel with five suitcases and when we got to the venue, I'd put together a look for the show. Nothing was ever planned."
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American Music Awards (2018)
"This is when I started doing the intentional V haircut — the black widow we called it. Before that, it was my natural hairline, there was no imagination. This suit had a Beetle Juice-style jacket that made it more formal, more Red Carpet, but I loved the shirt so much. The third eye idea occurred to me three days before the show and we flew a special effects makeup artist from Puerto Rico to do it."
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Madison Square Garden (2019)
"This was my first concert at Madison Square Garden. It was badass for so many reasons. To perform in such an epic venue, the site of so many amazing concerts and sporting events. I am a big sports fan. If you look closely you can see that I'm wearing acrylic nails. This was my first time doing acrylics, and it took me like three days to get used to them."
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Billboard Latin Music Awards (2019)
"My face! It's so big that even my ears look small. That year, I brought all my friends to the Billboard [Latin Music Awards] and they had all chosen looks to wear. This was actually Jan's look that I stole from him. I was like, Jan go pick something for yourself from my rack. I'd decided to dye my hair because I'd wanted it to glow during the performance. It was between this color and neon orange."
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Latin Grammy Awards (2019)
"That was a great day. I love that coat, and the funny thing is that underneath it I was dressed super low-key, just a hoodie. It was all about the coat. The mask, if I remember correctly, came from a photoshoot I had done for Paper magazine. I liked it and asked them to get me one."
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The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon (2020)
"Such a badass look. The skirt, the jacket, the jewelry. The T-shirt was just something I felt like doing at that moment, it wasn't planned. We designed it and I asked the Fallon team to have it made for me like 30 minutes before the show."
Editor's note: The message reads "They killed Alexa, not a man in a skirt" in Spanish. It was a tribute to a trans woman who had been shot in Toa Baja, Puerto Rico earlier that week. Some reports of the killing used the offensive phrase.
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Billboard Music Awards (2020)
"This was at the gringo Billboard [Music Awards]. I love that necklace, the suit was badass, and the hair was in a mood. That day I did a surprise performance of 'Yo Perreo Sola' with Nesi and Ivy Queen, and I think we created a special and impactful moment. I was very happy personally, and it also made me so happy to see them happy. But this was the first awards show since the pandemic, so there was no one there — on the red carpet or in the audience — and it all felt a little weird."
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"Yo Perreo Sola" (2020)
"'Yo Perreo Sola' started when I was taking a shower and the chorus just came to me. I thought to myself, If I were a woman, would this have come to me? Do I give it to a female singer to do? No, I want to do it. I want to be the girl. I got out of the shower soaking wet and made the base rhythm on my computer and then recorded myself with my phone singing over it. We spent almost 24 hours filming the video but I was so happy because I was making my creation a reality."
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