Luxury fashion and the hip hop industry started out with a rocky relationship during the early 80's but eventually developed a mutual partnership. When hip hop was first created it in 70's it was an underground genre of music, although hip hop had a negative stigma it gained a cult following, but no fashion brand made a effort to be affiliated with the genre even if it would have been publicity for their brand towards minorities.
With hip hop becoming more popular among other genres of music during the 80's and 90's the public eye began to focus on hip hop and its culture. The distinctive streetwear style, hypnotic beats and melodic lyrics that branded the genre attracted not only a diverse audience, but after some time, luxury brands as well.
It all began in 1989, in Harlem New York at a small boutique owned by Dapper Dan, a New York native who wanted to bring haute couture to the poverty stricken neighborhood he grew up in.
“Originally my intentions were to buy wholesale and sell, but the things I wanted to buy weren’t available to me. The major companies would not sell to me – I would attribute it to either prejudice or location – so that inspired me to start making the things I made,” Dapper Dan reminisced told Dazed.com.
Due to luxury brands refusing to sell to Dapper Dan, he began making clothing which he called “Ghetto Couture” for the local “hustlers and street people”. One fateful day, LL Cool J walked in, became interested in his designs and soon Dapper Dan began making clothing for rap artists and athletes such as Salt n’ Pepa, Mike Tyson and Bobby Brown to name a few.
Suspicions were raised after Mike Tyson wore a Fendi jacket that wasn’t featured in any Fendi collection. Eventually, Dapper Dan was caught by lawyers for selling knock offs of luxury brands and his boutique was regularly being raided.
“I didn’t do knock offs, I did knock ups," Dan joked with Dazed.com.
All the designs he created were original, but he copied the logos onto his clothing.
“The only thing that I (copied) was the logo itself, and even then, I did them in ways that had never been done before, not even by the people who owned the rights to the logos,” Dapper Dan told FastCompany.com.
Although he was infringing brands, he gave black artists and local New Yorkers the opportunity to wear streetwear luxury clothing that was affordable and appealed to the black consumers, because it wasn’t being offered to them at the time. The luxury brands weren’t creating streetwear clothing, but dinner party attire that only appealed to their target audience, white consumers. The brands made no efforts to try and appeal to the black community. Dapper Dan ignited the start of rappers wearing luxury brands because he combined the black streetwear culture with luxury fabric and logos and had reinvented the styles.
A few year later, in 1986, Run DMC became the first rap group to get an endorsement deal with the fashion label Adidas and released the song “My Adidas,” earning them $1 million. After this initial endorsement, luxury brands began making deals with rap artists in order to garner more publicity and appeal to the black target audiences by creating streetwear designs for the rap artists to wear.
In 1988, Ralphie’s Kids, a group from Crown Heights, and Polo U.S.A., a group from Brownsville, joined together to form the Brooklyn rap group Lo-Lifes, fueled by their similar love for the Polo and Ralph Lauren brands. The photo book “Bury Me” was created by photographer Tom Gould featuring photos of Bic Vic Lo and portrait photos of Lo-Lifes. Both Ralph Lauren and Polo were creating clothing for their target audience of the white middle class.
“In so many ways, hip-hop is a reflection of society and environment, wherein folks who are denizens of the culture, do not see themselves, do not see themselves in mainstream culture,” Sacha Jenkins, director of “Fresh Dressed” said when speaking to the LA Times. “So they say, ‘How can we see ourselves in our own terms while borrowing the things we appreciate — even if these brands don’t appreciate us?’ That defiant attitude and desire to reinterpret styles serves as a foundational principle of hip-hop fashion that has crossed into the mainstream.”
In the 90s, it became more common for rappers to be affiliated with luxury brands. In 1996, Tupac walked the Versace fashion show with his girlfriend. During 1999 “Rappers diversified into fashion, with the launch of Rocawear following labels including Phat Farm and Fubu,” BusinessOfFashion.com states.
Following the early 2000s, rappers began collaborations with luxury fashion brands. The current fashion collaborations are Travis Scott with Saint Laurent, Kendrick Lamar with Adidas and A$AP Rocky with Dior. Rappers have also been mentioning luxury fashion companies in their music as well.
“Gucci gang, Gucci gang, Gucci gang, spend 10 racks on a new chain. I can't buy a bitch no wedding ring, rather go and buy Balmains.” - “Gucci Gang,” Lil Pump
It's more common now for luxury fashion companies to have some streetwear clothing in their collections. In the Gucci 2018 fall collection, designer Alessandro Michele incorporates the same design as Dapper Dan’s bootleg puffer jacket into the fashion show as a salute to the designer. Gucci and Dapper Dan are planning on releasing a collaboration soon
“Brands are changing their messaging. They are starting to include people of color, and more minorities because the minority dollar is strong,” stylist Matthew Henson says to the LA Times. “That has a good side and a bad side. It can be predatory, but there is a little bit of a leveling of the playing field and that has to do with hip-hop artists and their power and influence and what their voices can do.”
Photo Courtesy of GQ.
Courtesy of NY Daily Times via Getty Images.
Photo Courtesy of VICE.
Photo Courtesy of Dior Homme.
