I Recently watched the Netflix Documentary ‘Hip Hop x Fashion’ starring talented artists and fashion legends like KERBY JEAN-RAYMOND, DAPPER DAN and Walker Wear Founder APRIL WALKER. Very similar to the 2015 documentary’ Fresh Dressed’, gives you incredible insight into the hip hop fashion culture and how it’s constantly evolving. Through this extraordinary documentary you’ll enter the world of bright lights, designer brands, aesthetic look and jaw dropping social commentaries through fashion.
Director and creator Farah X and Lisa Cortés explore the underbelly of the hip hop industry and it’s ties with fashion and the glamour world. The cultural representation in the hip hop and fashion industry has such a strong and influential voice. The voice of colored men and women expressing their style and boldness through an exciting art form – that is fashion. This documentary is truly fascinating and definitely a must watch, so please don’t miss it!.
If you have been reading my blog I did my earlier blogs on R&B fashion and the inspiration it drew from African fashion. Pyer Moss is the label of the rising New York-based designer Kerby Jean-Raymond, recognized for his pioneering approach to fashion that fuses the personal and the political. Some of his designs and collections are such powerful statements for the black lives matter movement. Bold jackets and trousers screaming’ I can’t breathe’ and edgy shoes with the names of those who were a victim to the brutality. Some of the outfits are so striking, you can not miss it.
‘Hip Hop x Fashion uncovers the 80’ and 90’s fashion in the hip hop industry- classic stars like Lil Kim, Mary J Blige, Tupac and many pull off daring colors , hot outfits and stunning monochromatic looks with different wigs. My blog R&B fashion covers a lot of different examples of the same artists rocking the African prints and colorful fits- styles which are clearly rendering the mainstreamed Hip hop industry over and over again.
Table of Contents
Hip hop illegal
‘The Fashion Outlaw Dapper Dan’ New York Times covers the Dapper Dan story, a designer from Harlem who redesigned and recreated logo and brand clothes. Gucci Jackets , Louis Vuitton bags and Nike joggers without any permission yet gaining extreme popularity and massive success in the African American community.
Things have come full circle. Litigation by luxury brands ran Dapper Dan’s Boutique out of business in the ’90s, and now here comes a major fashion house trying to grab the attention of a generation steeped in hip-hop by finding inspiration in a one time fashion outlaw. Recently Louis Vuitton paid homage to Dan – The new Gucci jacket, designed by Gucci’s creative director, Alessandro Michele, remakes the Dapper Dan jacket, but with the interlocking double-G Gucci logo in place of the Louis Vuitton markings.
HE DID IT FIRST!
‘He did it first!’ Said Mrs Dixon on Instagram when she posted Gucci’s new collection, which resumed Dapper Dan’s Louis Vuitton jacket. People went on an uproar,when they found out about this. Draper Dan seemed to make his own designs but made them much better, are Luxury brands really running out of Ideas?.
My blog ‘Fake it till you make it’ covers how designer brands have become more like an art piece, and in today’s world you’ll see hundreds of fakes in more interesting designs. You can print a Versace logo on literally anything and make it look authentic and stylish, it will definitely sell. Very original and inspiring looks come out from something like this, although credits must be given where it’s due.
Affordable, stylish and gives you that extra validation to feel empowered and entitled , in the 80’s hip hop industry that was one way to have a voice. So who doesn’t want that kind of attention after years of oppression ?. Hip hop x Fashion covers everything and anything about the uprising of African American Fashion completely dominating the music industry as well as inspiring so many designs for Luxury Brands, a documentary definitely worth a watch.
