Usher’s Super Bowl Halftime Outfit: How Off-White Scored Fashion’s Biggest Touchdown

Kamara and the Off-White team are no strangers to primetime performances, having dressed Beyoncé in a custom red jumpsuit—also bedazzled—for her Renaissance tour. But kitting out the Super Bowl halftime star is one of the biggest coups in fashion. You might not remember much from the big game last year, but you surely remember when Rihanna hit the stage in Glendale in a custom fire-truck red Loewe jumpsuit. There’s no margin for error at a moment that brings with it a host of unique challenges. “Beyoncé’s look was very specific,” says Kamara, “but she wasn’t roller skating and doing the splits. And she wasn’t wearing pants.”

Courtesy of Off-White

Usher is the biggest menswear obsessive to play the halftime show since, well, Usher himself cameoed in 2011 with the Black Eyed Peas. Last year, the R&B superstar was all over Paris Fashion Week. At the time, he told me that he was basically on a shopping trip. He had a few weeks off from his sold-out Vegas residency, and he wanted to see the new men’s collections firsthand, hitting the front rows in a heavy schedule that included Bode and Rick Owens and Comme des Garçons and Louis Vuitton and Wales Bonner. He considers his wardrobe to be a part of his performance, and his taste is sophisticated and personal; he told Vogue that he loves to “see a designer’s passions and emotions.”

Usher’s team got directly in touch with Kamara and Off-White to make the halftime look happen. Kamara, the Sierra Leone-born and London-based editor and stylist who succeeded Virgil Abloh at Off-White in 2022, told me that Usher has long been considered a part of the label’s extended family. Of all the brands in the world Usher could have selected, he clearly saw in Off-White and Kamara the passion that he channels through his stagewear. “I think we felt like a natural brand to work with,” Kamara says.

Usher’s choice was indeed extremely considered. Once the two sides began talking, Usher’s team sent over a Super Bowl-sized moodboard: a 50-page deck with references to Kamara and Abloh’s work. “It was pretty heavily researched,” Kamara recalls. “He obviously had a really strong vision for what he wanted.” Which was critical to the process. “Where do you start with the Super Bowl halftime show?” says Kamara, who admitted he’s not the biggest football fan. But with Usher, Kamara added, “it was actually the easiest project to start.”