Lenny Kravitz’s mom helped make him a style icon

Lenny Kravitz has always been one of the more stylish rockers out there, but early on some friends questioned his style choices.

Discussing a black skirt a former girlfriend made him when he was a teenager, Kravitz tells the latest issue of Highsnobiety, “My friends were like, ‘Your mom’s going to freak.’ We were all nervous.”

But it turns out there was no real need to worry. He says that his mother, The Jeffersons star Roxie Roker, looked him “up and down” and then gave him some advice, sharing, “If you’re gonna wear that skirt, you got to change them shoes.”

He adds, “One thing about my mother, she never judged anybody. She just loved.”

Kravitz discusses how his background, being both Caribbean-American and Jewish-Ukrainian, helped influence his style. He shares, “Growing up between cultures and religions and types of people in my family, by virtue of me being multiracial … I grew up in the middle of all this beauty.”

But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have some regrets about his style choices. “It happens all the time,” although he says now he has more of a “who cares?” attitude about it.

“You’re not going to grow if everything’s perfect all the time,” he says.