“I love gold,” Teyana Taylor says. Clad in a gold sequin romper and Moschino cap, the R&B singer — perched on a gold table at the Soho lounge GoldBar — reaches up to grab a sparkling chandelier overhead.
It’s a gilded scene worthy of a festive music video, but Taylor has another look in mind for her own Christmas celebration with boyfriend Iman Shumpert of the Knicks.
“Me and Iman, we’re going to be wearing ugly Christmas sweaters. I am going to have the dopest ugliest Christmas sweater ever. We’re the matching couple with the turtlenecks and everything,” she says, offering a vision of the tableau. “We’re going straight up ‘Step Brothers’ with it.”
Consider it just the next turn in the 24-year-old’s style evolution.
She first solidified her place in pop-culture history by appearing on MTV’s “My Super Sweet 16” in 2007 — the spoiled Harlem teen with big hair had an ’80s-themed skateboarding party complete with a cameo by Pharrell Williams.
In the episode, she convinces her mom to drop $700 on a pair of Nikes, remarking, “Nobody got $700 sneakers. Nobody.”
But now, the singer is showing the world that she’s all woman. Her debut studio album, “VII” — executive produced by Kanye West — dropped last month and shot straight to the top of Billboard’s R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart.
Still…
“Yes, people still bring [‘My Super Sweet 16’] up,” says Taylor, who admits it makes her cringe. “I don’t understand how people even remember it. I think MTV is playing a lot of reruns.”
Just before her 16th birthday, she signed with Pharrell’s label Star Trak.
Her own career stalled, though, until West gave her a second chance and signed her to his GOOD Music imprint in 2012.
Now, she says, “I am coming into my own.” Her new album was influenced by Lauryn Hill and Janet Jackson. “It’s a big deal,” she says. “People are labeling me as an R&B solo artist — from this tomboy rapper. [Back then,] I got judged because of my swag or the way I dressed. So it feels good now.”
Her sense of style has evolved, too. The singer, who wears edgy designs by Rick Owens and Alexander Wang, says she’d love to collaborate with Owens.
And though she still considers herself a sneakerhead, Taylor likes to dress up for her man. The two do a lot of movie-and-dinner dates. “I love Del Frisco’s. I am a big-time steak girl,” she says.
“He likes to try new things. I dress sexy for my date nights. You gotta make it a big deal every time you step out — create that moment.”
But she plays by her own rules. “You got to make them miss it,” she says. “You can’t be sexy 24/7.”
Taylor, who tries to attend as many Knicks games as she possibly can, says the romance has helped her develop another important relationship — with pal Alexis Stoudemire, the wife of Shumpert’s teammate Amar’e Stoudemire.
Taylor met Shumpert, the stylish 24-year-old Knicks shooting guard with the quirky high-top fade, three years ago at a club in the city.
“He was a little tipsy,” she says with a giggle. “He was celebrating because he had just been signed. He was trying to get at me, and I curved him,” admits Taylor, who had previously dated Detroit Piston Brandon Jennings.
Though they didn’t make a love connection that night, the pair developed a friendship. And after each went through a breakup, Taylor and Shumpert got together about a year ago. The couple now live together in Harlem.
“He’s goofy. I love the fact that we’re both goofy; we command the room,” she says. “We kind of found each other when we weren’t looking. We were able to build a friendship. So by the time we got together, it was just perfect.”