Bradley Zero: "My personal style is a reflection of my DJing style"

I never used to buy nice sunglasses because I always lose them, but since I got my man bag I’ve managed to keep hold of them. I got these in Paris; they’re by a Japanese company called Eyevan which makes beautiful, precision-made metal-framed sunglasses using some kind of Samurai sword technique, kind of high-end machined metal.

My personal style is a reflection of my DJing style. When I DJ I turn up to a gig like, am I going to play house, am I going to play r’n’b, am I going to play some techno, am I going to play jazz? So sometimes I wear jogging bottoms and trainers, sometimes I wear a suit and shoes, sometimes I wear a string vest and fancy sunglasses, sometimes I wear a cape from Kazakhstan.

Nicholas Daley is a relatively up-and-coming menswear designer who I met a few years ago when he was at St Martin’s. His ethos is a cross between British – especially Scottish – identity, and Afro-Caribbean. So when you asked me to do this I thought ,‘This is a chance to wear some of Nicholas’s clothes!’. So the hat, shirt and shorts [right] are by Nicholas Daley.

When I was 15 my mum shaved my hair off. I remember looking in the mirror, shedding a tear, and saying to myself, ‘I am never cutting it again’. I never looked back.

The hat is a prototype,and is literally the only hat I’ve ever found that fits on my head. It’s not just big hair I have, it’s an extraordinarily large head too!

The first year I was at uni, nu-rave was massive. I would have been 18 or 19 and we went to a big rave in Bournemouth fire station and I remember using fluorescent pens and writing ‘R A V E !’ on my T-shirt about 200 times from top to bottom in different colours. The picture still exists on the internet! I also got my girlfriend at the time to make me a hoodie with a horrible neon print with lots of stars and lightning bolts in black and purple and neon yellow.

I admire men who wear skirts and dresses. I’ve always thought it a shame that a whole piece of clothing has been gendered for so long. Women broke those boundaries by wearing trousers in the 1920s and 30s – at the time it was a huge taboo. There’s too much toxic masculinity around for it to be OK to see a man walking around in a skirt, and I am not ready to carry the torch of gender neutrality when it comes to clothing, but I really would love it to be normal and accepted for everyone to wear whatever style of clothes they want.

The watch I got for my 30th birthday is from my mum. I’ve never worn watches because I’ve lost every one I’ve had, but with this 30th birthday treat I thought maybe it would be special enough for me to keep hold of. It’s a Swiss brand called Mido, which is’t that well known in the UK. It’s a certified chronometer, a proper Swiss thing, but very much budget compared to how much some chronometer watches cost. It’s certainly not a Rolex!

I’m not generally a fan but god damn, I got a plain white Kanye West T-shirt from APC a couple of years ago and nothing has ever come close. It’s like a margarita pizza: if you can do that right you can do anything. If I ever go to an Italian place I always try the margarita. Kanye nailed the white tee.

Rhythm Section Presents takes place at The Jazz Cafe, London on September 20

Louis Anderson-Rich is Mixmag's Digital Producer, follow him on Twitter.