Dapper Dan Hip-Hop Fashion Square
One couldn't possibly overestimate the influence that Dapper Dan has had on hip-hop. The shopkeeper and haberdashery expert was instrumental in curating the designer lines and accessories that would be seized upon by early forerunners of the genre, turning an entire culture from drab to flashy in only a few short years. Dan (real name Daniel Day) kept an eponymous on Harlem's East 125th street, and through his own self-described affection for a "macho type of ethnic ghetto clothing," worked to re-appropriate brands like Gucci, Fendi and Louis Vuitton and Fendi for the hip-hop set. Almost overnight, artists like LL Cool J, Big Daddy Kane, Salt ‘n’ Pepa, Run DMC, Fat Boys and Public Enemy were spotted wearing his wares, taking hip-hop's look out of the alleyways and onto, of all places, the runway.
Now, in a new video produced by Mass Appeal ahead of their upcoming Fresh Dressed documentary, the Dapper Dan man shares modern insights into clothing design and personal style choice--morsels of experience that many of us could surely benefit from as we navigate our own closets, to be sure. "A lot of black designers let the industry determine the direction that they should go in," Day expounds, "I never felt a need to be accepted on that level." He proceeds to shoot holes in the notion of right/wrong absolutes, rightly noting that the forces that determine what's "in style" at any given moment are, so often, arbitrary.
"There's no ugly fashion. There's no right or wrong in fashion--there's a weak and strong in fashion. The strong determines the direction fashion is going to take." Watch the full video below and take notes as you straighten those cufflinks.
