Nettspend Grows Up

During the shoot, Nett played for the designer a then unreleased song called “Skipping Class,” which featured a then uncleared sample of the peak-Grimes Grimes song “Genesis,” which Nett wasn’t sure he’d get the green light for. But thankfully, Linnetz knows Grimes.

“I was like, ‘Oh, I’ll just ask Grimes,’” says the designer, recounting that the Canadian singer (and erstwhile partner of Elon Musk) vaguely knew who Nettspend was: “I think people similarly have been telling her about him.”

Nettspend’s whole cohort, Linnetz tells me, “does in some way recall more something from like, the ’60s or ’70s Laurel Canyon where it’s just like, ‘Oh, come through.’”

Though the designer tells me this over the phone, I raise my eyebrows. My brain bends at the comparison, as I try to envision Nettspend living in a very, very, very fine house with two cats in the yard.

“But Laurel Canyon, like, flipped completely on its head,” I offer.

“No yeah, no, in the most fucked-up way possible,” Linnetz concedes, laughing. But still, he says, Nett “has such an insane aura and energy and, like, he had such an unusual presence that I was really impressed by. [He’s] like, equally connected to the universe and also dissociative. It seems like there’s something spiritual going on.”

At this point, a critical mass of actual grown-ups—record-label execs, fashion designers, cultural critics—have not only taken note of Nettspend’s aura, but chosen to invest their money and their influence in him. The inroads have been carved for this hyper-online scene of profoundly parent-alienating music to cross over into the mainstream, and Nett has been anointed as its cherubic face.

At Lucien, Nett is starting to seem antsy. He tells me about the shopping he’s been doing here in the city, including the new-acquisition sunglasses. His personal style—expensive streetwear, skinny jeans—is another thing his fans obsess over.