Janet Jackson Breaks Down 17 Looks From 1970 To Now

I was performing for the Queen of England

and we were doing Rhythm Nation.

As soon as I squatted,

my pants split right in my booty crack.

I mean badly.

Could you imagine if I just would've flashed her for

just like a hot second?

[laughing]

[mellow music]

Just a baby.

Was what, two, three, maybe three years old.

I was watching my brothers play basketball.

Mother always was very adamant about me looking neat.

And you know, I wanted to hang out with the guys,

wanted to just put on whatever,

but I like this look, I thought it was quite cute

with the matching top.

I think it's sweet, sweet picture.

Ooh, this is my kindergarten picture.

Look at those dry knees.

Oh my goodness.

I loved my kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Gokey.

That's her name.

I adored her.

I had my first crush in kindergarten.

I don't remember his name,

but he was a redhead that I remember.

[mellow music]

I was a very shy child, so he never knew I liked him.

Mother loved me in dresses.

Me, I didn't want to wear them.

I'd rather be in pants.

But she loved me in blue and in dresses.

Oh, I was 16 on this picture at the American Musical Awards.

I also wore this dress to my graduation.

Beautiful Taffeta dress.

It was nice and big.

Had room to throw my legs around.

Oh my God, the 80s fashion.

You know who I really enjoyed?

Haysi Fantayzee.

Yeah, I loved their fashion sense.

No chance, no chance.

[scat singing]

Something like that.

I love the way Haysi Fantayzee looked.

I thought they were so cool.

The key earring.

I used to take care of all the animals and we had animals.

We had giraffe, Mouflon sheep,

we had pheasants, toucans, cockatoos.

We had a lot of animals, dogs.

And I used to take care of all of them.

I used to clean the cages, all of that.

And that's why I kept the key there

because I never kept a key chain or anything,

so I didn't want to lose it.

So I started wearing hoop earrings

and kept it on my earring so I wouldn't lose it.

Here we go.

In a suit.

Yeah, this is happiness.

This is bliss.

Such a tomboy.

I loved my brothers

and whatever they did, I wanted to do.

Mother was okay with it.

I'm in pink.

Wasn't crazy about pink, but I'm sure she chose pink.

Never felt like, oh, I want to make a statement.

It's just what am I comfortable in?

And it was always a suit.

And if I could get away with wearing it

every time we had an event, I would.

So I tried it a lot.

I got my way a lot too.

Here we go again.

I think this was at the Grammys,

when Michael won all those Grammys for Thriller.

Once again, just being me,

it was just really about being me and being comfortable.

I loved being at the Grammys and all these award shows

and at concerts with my...

It was exciting.

A really exciting time.

You see my sister, Latoya, she loves her headbands

and she finally, thank God, got out of them,

but they looked great on her and beautiful figure.

So she was always in a fitted dress.

As a matter of fact, my dress that I wore

for the American Music Awards, the red one,

she actually took it,

and I couldn't believe she had the audacity

to walk in my closet and take my dress.

I was so mad.

I was so mad.

I haven't seen it since.

Sisters.

1814, Fahrenheit 451.

That's where this came from.

The inspiration for this with the mock neck shirt

with the plate on it.

And I added a lot more to it.

But that's where the whole inspiration for

where the nation outfit came from.

It's a French film, I think.

And then needing someone to build it

and thinking, oh my gosh, who could do this for me?

I went to my brothers.

They had someone that they worked with quite often

whose name was Bill Whitten.

And Bill is the one that...

Because all those plates had to be made,

he did a wonderful job, a beautiful job.

Funny story about this outfit.

I was performing for the Queen of England

and we were doing Rhythm Nation.

Sure enough, soon as I squatted,

my pants split right in my booty crack.

I couldn't believe it happened.

I thought, oh my God.

And then I started feeling air back there,

so I knew it had really happened.

And the whole time it was fine until, no,

you're gonna perform for the Queen of England.

So I never turned my back to her,

which some of the choreography was supposed to.

I just faced forward.

Oh my God, what year was this?

This was in the 90s.

This was the Billboard Awards.

That was Elia, the top.

I don't know what pants these pants I had on.

Trying to give a little femininity but still have on pants.

Janet Zeitoun did my hair.

Kevyn Aucoin did my makeup.

Wayne Scott Lucas, he did the styling

and they were all brilliant.

Brilliant, just brilliant.

It was just fun.

It was like playing dress up in a sense, you know?

These were my poetic justice days

[mellow music]

because that's John Singleton's former girlfriend.

So it had to be around the time.

I loved it because I loved braids.

Kieselstein cord belt.

I love Kieselstein belts.

And I had so many different ones in different colors

from back then at the time.

So right after finishing shooting,

I went into record the Janet album.

It's so funny.

My music and all the accolades and all,

I don't keep anything in my house.

And it's not that I don't appreciate,

because I'm very thankful to God

for everything he's done for me,

but that's not what validates me, it's not what defines me.

So I've always kept that there

and then my home has been my home.

But once again, I mean, it gave me so much pleasure to work.

I really enjoyed it and I still do.

This is bliss for me.

Sweats, combat boots.

I have on a beanie.

I have my plaid shirt around me for when I get cold

because I'm always cold.

And that was one of my favorite shirts at the time,

my Mickey Mouse shirt.

Fun times.

Look at it, I see the silhouette of

Omar and Sean in the back.

That was me on the regular, this look.

[mellow music]

Mike asked me to present him with a special award

that he was getting for the Grammys,

and I was happy to do so.

I have on Richard Tyler, a Richard Tyler suit.

Not knowing that he was going to wear white.

It's the AIDS ribbon,

supporting all that was surrounding AIDS

and trying to battle it.

That's why I wrote the song Together Again.

That's what it's really about.

And I just wanted to show my support.

So it was important to me.

This is when I did the video, Scream, with Mike.

It was a lot of hard work and it was great to get together

and for me to support him the way I always have.

But what was difficult,

and especially for Janet who did my hair,

she was doing my hair in the day and he would film at night,

so she would be up around the clock,

she would do his hair at night.

And it was a lot.

It was a lot, but it was such a beautiful shoot.

A magical shoot.

What a great video when you look at it still to this day.

This is the velvet rope era, because my hair is red.

And just wanted to do something different.

Always changing my hair, because of boredom, really.

And Wayne did this because I'm showing boobs.

He loved to pull my boobs out

and he would even pad my bras

so my boobs would stick out even more.

Oh my gosh, I'm thinking, they look big.

This is Velvet Rope,

and I think it was David Cardona

who I created these looks with.

And I mean, I keep saying it, but it's really the truth.

You see how comfortable I am in a suit and a tie.

The only thing that's missing in this,

this must have been If,

I could tell the position that people are in,

we're doing the song If, because we opened the show

and we had top hats on, that Philip Tracy had done for us.

They were beautiful.

Love that.

[mellow music]

The Movie Awards, MTV.

Either we had a feeling or we knew.

I think it was more of a premonition

that Matrix would win, and they did.

So this was my take on the Matrix.

It was hard to walk in.

All that leather, kicking it around,

but I like that look.

All For You video.

This was a take on Jean Paul Gaultier with the cutoff sleeve

and it was a real cool look.

Wayne Scot Lukas did this.

I liked it very much.

This was the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

I wanted something that would match my hair.

So Robert Behar did this.

So he put feathers to match the color of my hair.

You know what's so funny?

I never thought about it one way or the other.

If I would get in, if I wouldn't get in.

Like I said, it doesn't define who I am.

I love my job.

I still do it because I love it.

I'm thankful to God that he has allowed people

to still be interested in wanting to see

what it is that I do

because if it weren't for that,

I wouldn't be, I couldn't do it.

So I'm appreciative all the way around.

Tom Brown, that's this tour.

I love Tom and I'm so happy he's become a friend.

There's certain designers that are just genius to me.

Tom is right in there.

He's a true genius and he did this for me for tour

and I think he made it him,

but yet he also made it me.

This tour.

You know, it is the people that have grown up

with my music from the beginning and their children,

and it just lets me know that

my music has stood the test of time,

which I think would be a dream for any artist.

And like I said before, that they're still interested

in wanting to see what it is that I do, what I can do at 58.

Thank you so, so much for watching.

That was my Life In Looks.

I'm Janet Jackson and maybe I'll see you again.

I don't know.

Bye.