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Bree Runway recalls selling children’s shoes to Adele on the new episode of The FADER Interview

The Ghanaian-British rapper, singer, and fashion icon discusses new music and future collabs with The FADER’s Gyasi Williams-Kirtley.

December 15, 2022

Bree Runway is this week’s guest on The FADER Interview. Her 2022 arc has been meteoric, an exponential acceleration of her journey from odd jobs as a cleaner, server, and sales associate to viral tracks, fabulous music videos, and gifts from the Gaultier archive. Before capping off her whirlwind year with the surprise, bite-sized EP Woah, What a Blur! this past Friday, she joined The FADER’s Gyasi Williams-Kirtley to talk about her winding path to success, and where it’s headed next.

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Bree’s road to the runway is paved with outlandish anecdotes to match her outsize personality, and one such story involves a retail run-in with another English diva. “I was doing sales work for a children’s shoe brand, but I wanted to work at Christian Louboutin, so I changed my whole swag — started dressing like I work at Christian Louboutin, packaging the shoes like I work at Louboutin — and I started getting VIP clients,” she tells Gya.

One day, a familiar figure walked through the door. “I literally blacked out,” Bree remembers. “I didn’t recognize her until she turned her face a certain way, and I was like, ‘Oh my God, it’s Adele.’ I was just packaging the shoes, like, ‘I can’t breathe. It’s Adele.’ It was just me and her on the shop floor. I was like, [whispering] ‘Don’t say anything, it’s Adele, oh my God. Would you like a receipt? I mean, [loudly] would you like a receipt? [whispering] Did I say that out loud? Oh my God, it’s Adele.’ She was like, ‘Yes, love, I’m Adele. Can I have my shoes, please?’”

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Despite her momentary shyness, Bree’s confidence won out in the end. “In my season of acting like I worked at Louboutin, I ended up working at Louboutin,” she concludes.

Elsewhere in the episode — linked here and embedded below — Bree discusses linking up with Stormzy for Woah, What a Blur! cut “Pick Your Poison” and with Khalid for a future track she refers to, with her typical reserve, as “a big Black pop moment that will go down in history.”