Nemzzz Poses With a Seven-Foot Alligator in MERTRA’s Autumn 2026 Campaign

MERTRA has shot campaigns 70 meters underground, in a prison and on Mont Blanc. For Autumn 2026 the Australian streetwear label booked a London studio and a live, seven-foot alligator, then cast the Manchester rapper Nemzzz as its co-star, Complex reports. In the images he wears highlights from a new 24-piece collection that includes a crocodile-print jacket, denim, headwear and knitwear. It’s out Friday (Oct. 23).

Founder Aron Williams, in what Complex calls his first public interview, says the original plan was a crocodile.

We always go all in on our campaigns, so getting a crocodile into the room was a necessity. Finding one safe enough to shoot with was close to impossible, so we eventually settled on a seven-foot alligator. It came with its own professional handlers and we shot on its terms, not ours. Nobody on set was going to argue with it.

Aron Williams, MERTRA founder, Complex

Nemzzz wasn’t a random pick. Williams says he’s been listening to the rapper “for ages” and that Nemzzz had already been wearing the label, “styling them in his own way.” He adds that “Nemzzz was involved on the day with the styling, from the creps to the specific looks he wanted to wear.”

I’d seen MERTRA about for a minute and I just liked what they were doing. The pieces are clean but there’s still something different about them. I’m quite particular with what I wear, so if something fits right and feels natural on me, I’ll wear it. It never felt forced.

Nemzzz, Complex

Williams runs the label like a record rollout, and artist-led campaigns are having a month: Tyler, the Creator just got full creative control of FC Barcelona’s El Clásico shirt takeover. “The musicians I grew up on weren’t just releasing songs, they were building worlds,” he says, and “a campaign holds just as much weight as the product does.” MERTRA began in Melbourne in 2022 with AUD $5,000 of his own savings, he says. He now lives in London, and the label has offices in London, Melbourne and China. A message from the artist Olaolu Slawn last year turned into a collaboration designed within weeks, and Lil Yachty ended up modeling it.

The rapper has a fresh reason to be in front of cameras. Locked In, his 17-track mixtape, features Travis Scott, Lil Yachty and Cash Cobain, per Clash, and its lead single, “GASS,” is a Scott collaboration, Rolling Stone Australia notes. Both outlets call him one of the U.K.’s most-streamed rappers.

There’s a full-circle detail for Williams, too. “He’s also selling out shows in Aus,” he says of Nemzzz, whose Locked In tour starts in Melbourne in March 2027 before moving on to Sydney and Brisbane, per Rolling Stone Australia.