I’ll be honest — I’ve been struggling with white jeans all spring. Every time I try to style them head-to-toe in white, I end up looking less “effortlessly cool” and more “poolside resort staff.” But Rihanna’s May 13th New York City outing was the lightbulb moment I didn’t know I needed: the trick isn’t matching perfectly — it’s mixing slightly.
Here’s what she did. She started with a crisp, oversized white T-shirt — true, bright white — and matched it with high-vamp flats in the exact same shade, but in sleek, glossy leather. So far, so monochrome. But then she pulled on a pair of baggy, straight-leg jeans in a slightly warmer, off-white tone. That tiny shift in shade — just a few degrees toward cream — was all it took to break up the blinding effect and give the whole look dimension. Most celebrities rocking white denim right now (think Bella Hadid, Kendall Jenner, Olivia Wilde) have been sticking to a single, uniform white. Rihanna went off-script, and it worked better.
Image credit: Getty Images
She also gave me two accessory ideas to steal. First, she layered an unzipped camel Balenciaga windbreaker over the whole look — left open so you could still see the white tee and the yellow-gold necklaces stacked underneath. It’s the kind of piece that Zendaya and Hailey Bieber have also been gravitating toward this season, and for good reason: it adds color without committing to color. Second, she re-wore the burgundy Dior Crunchy Bag she’d already paired with a couple of outfits earlier in the week. Smart move — when you’ve got a good bag, you use it. She’d also swapped out the high-vamp flats for Amina Muaddi snakeskin ankle-strap stilettos, leaning into the animal print shoe moment that’s taken over spring street style.
Rihanna doesn’t reach for white denim often — she tends to go for medium and dark washes — but when she does, she commits fully to an all-white look around it. And this isn’t even a new formula for her. A decade ago she was doing the same thing in ripped white skinnies with a lace-up hoodie and platform boots. The “no white before Labor Day” rule has never meant anything to her, and honestly, after seeing this outfit, it doesn’t mean much to me anymore either.