Fashion, Theft, and the Politics of Style

By Ebony Emerson –

I Love Boosters is a riotous, genre-bending crime comedy that blends labor politics, fashion-world satire, and the unruly joy of collective rebellion.

The film follows a tight-knit crew of female shoplifters whose small-time boosting unexpectedly ignites a much larger uprising.

I Love Boosters

A film by Boots Riley starring Keke Palmer, Naomi Ackie, Taylour Paige, Poppy Liu, Eiza González, LaKeith Stanfield, Will Poulter, with Don Cheadle, and Demi Moore.

At the center of the story is the Velvet Gang, Corvette (Keke Palmer), Sade (Naomi Ackie), and Mariah (Taylour Paige), three women scraping by in Oakland by lifting high-end clothing from Metro Designer, a luxury fashion empire run by the ruthless Christie Smith (Demi Moore). What begins as a survival hustle soon becomes a pointed act of resistance. When the women learn more about Metro Designer’s exploitative labor practices, they decide to take down the CEO herself. Their plan: infiltrate the company, sabotage its upcoming fashion show, and expose the rot at the top.

Boots Riley, whose 2018 debut Sorry to Bother You became a cult sensation, once again blends absurdism with sharp political critique. I Love Boosters is a superb spectacle filled with tilted office floors, supernatural encounters, and time-bending technology, but beneath the chaos lies a grounded message about labor rights, community survival, and the hidden economies that sustain working-class life. Riley has spoken openly about his personal history with boosters and how they are often misunderstood despite playing a vital role in communities of color.

The film’s satire lands squarely on the fashion industry’s contradictions: its reliance on marginalized communities for inspiration, its exploitation of global labor, and its obsession with exclusivity. Corvette, an aspiring designer herself, embodies this tension—she admires Christie’s artistic vision even as she recognizes the harm it causes. When she discovers that Christie has stolen her designs, the Velvet Gang’s mission becomes personal as well as political.

I Love Boosters is more than a heist comedy. It’s a vibrant, unruly, politically charged spectacle that asks who gets to participate in fashion, who gets left out, and what happens when the people at the margins decide to rewrite the rules. Boots Riley once again proves that no one blends satire, surrealism, and social critique quite like he does.