Fashion

In Tonight’s Historic LGBTQ+ Ballet, Dancer Calvin Royal III Finally Sees Himself Onstage

Ahead of his world premiere in “Touché,” we speak with the American Ballet Theatre dancer….

At just under 30 minutes long, Touché follows the journey of two young men whose worlds crash into each other. Like a butterfly’s metamorphosis, Rudd’s piece spans the stages of a gay man’s journey to self-acceptance—from piercing uncertainty to uncomfortable encounters to peace within own’s skin. I ask Royal if he found a specific moment of the dance the most impactful. “There’s an in-between moment without any dancing. It’s between the first and second movement, [when] my character first discovers that he’s not alone in this, and that there’s this other person who has been on this whole other journey. It’s in this silent and still moment where we’re shedding our layers, the baggage that we once had, and we are standing face to face, not sure what the future holds. But there’s this feeling of hope and what things could be. And that moment, for me, just it says it all.”

Without giving too much of the piece away, there’s a kiss—the first ABT-commissioned kiss between two men. And to treat this production as Hollywood and Broadway might, an intimacy director, Sarah Lozoff, was brought onboard.

“I always requested communication with my artists, but the culture of dance tells us literally to keep our mouths shut. It is an art form in which language is not required, so dancers are trained to not speak,” says Rudd. “[Sarah and I] devised a plan to use intimacy direction to start making cultural shifts in dance, especially when the works are controversial and go deeply into a subject matter that the artists themselves had to deal with in life.”

For Lozoff, intimacy direction is not just about increasing the believability of kissing or simulated sex scene between characters. “It’s also about taking care of artists to make sure that they know they have agency, that their voices matter,” she says.

As Royal tells me, he feels seen and heard and he’s aware of the significance of it all. Of being partnered with another man, he says, I‘ve always hoped for this, [but] I didn‘t think that it would happen so soon.”

It’s happening tonight. Rudd says he’ll be watching it like “a candidate for office watching the numbers come in…I did all I could to make it worthwhile and valid and as meaningful as I could. Now the voters have to vote and the people have to accept it.” As for Royal, he says he’s “excited to see the final product, but I know that the experience alone was so fulfilling for me. Watching the ballet is just the cherry on top.”

Watch Touché tonight on ABT’s YouTube page.

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Entertainment

A$AP Rocky Turned An Entire Manchester City Kit Into His Album Rollout

Photo: DannyB Photos / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

A$AP Rocky doesn’t do album rollouts quietly, and this one recruited an entire Premier League club to help. Manchester City, PUMA, and Rocky teamed up on a limited apparel run tied to “Don’t Be Dumb,” his 2026 album, timed around his September 5th show at Co-op Live.

The centerpiece is a long-sleeve PUMA King jersey in black and archive gold, with “DON’T BE DUMB” running down the sleeve and AWGE branding worked in throughout. A bold “MANCHESTER” graphic covers the back. Fans could also add limited “A$AP 11” name-and-number printing onto the club’s actual Home, Away, or Third kits, while supplies lasted at retail.

There’s a players-only version too, and it never went up for sale. That one sticks closer to City’s usual sky-blue identity, with its own sleeve detailing and back graphic — the kind of piece that exists purely because a handful of people got lucky.

The whole rollout kicked off with a one-night pop-up on September 4th, when PUMA turned a spot in Manchester’s Northern Quarter into a pop-up cafe for the night, mixing football, music, and street style into one room before the wider release hit the stadium store the next morning. Some of those jerseys even came with golden tickets to the concert or that Saturday’s match.

Rocky has called the project true to his own design language, and it’s not even his only club collaboration this cycle — a similar drop with AC Milan landed around the same time. At this point, the line between fashion week and matchday has basically disappeared.

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Entertainment

Quavo And Lids Are Going All In On Atlanta With Their New Cap Pack

Photo: Finish Line / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)

Quavo has never been shy about his hat obsession, and Lids just gave him another outlet for it. Their new “Atlanta” pack drops September 12th, marking another round in a partnership that’s been running strong since 2019.

The collection is a love letter to the city, spread across three very different caps. One mashes up pinstripes, script lettering, and Braves branding into a single design, working navy, red, white, and light blue into the mix. Another goes the opposite direction entirely — fully iced out in crystal detailing, done up in black and red, with both the Falcons and the Braves showing up in the design. The third strips things back to an old-school “ATL” trucker cap in red, white, and gold, the kind of understated piece that lets the city’s name do the talking.

None of this is new territory for Quavo. He’s talked before about waiting on hat releases as a kid, and that same excitement seems to be what’s kept this partnership going years past most celebrity collabs. His earlier Lids run leaned on one moment — the Braves’ 1995 World Series win — but this pack pulls from the city’s whole sports history instead of just one highlight.

Lids has called Quavo one of the rare voices who can blend music, fashion, and sports without it feeling forced, and this drop backs that up. Given how fast his past releases have moved, Atlanta might want to set an alarm for September 12th.

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