Dapper dan clothing5/18/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() 14įashion for me wasn’t about expression. Monrovia, Liberia, standing next to my Fulani tailor.Ī New Hustle Even though some in the community had a problem with my clientele, it didn’t bother me one bit that my customers were hustlers and drug dealers. 12Īs soon as I started making clothes, my dad was the person I most wanted to make look fly. And lastly, there was my skill with a pair of dice.ĭapper Dan and friends on their trip to Africa 11īumpy Johnson, also known as Though we said we the “Godfather of Harlem” understood the line between our true spiritual selves and the hustler personas we presented to the world, sometimes the line blurred, and we weren’t too sure where our souls ended and the streets began. Second, there was my style, always looking fly. First there was my dance moves, which had landed me with the name Dancing Danny. Were you fly? 9Įveryone in Harlem was starting to know me for three reasons. ![]() Like the five elements of hip-hop, my generation had an unspoken pantheon of elements that dictated our respect for hustlers: 1. I wanted to be one of those hustlers who outsmarted people. Influential boxer Muhammed Ali “If you want to understand the flower, study the seed.” - Malcolm X Black activist Malcolm X Sports are always bigger than just the competition, and in the case of Ali, he had become the athlete of my generation who stood for something greater than himself. Singer and Jazz painist Nat King Cole From an early age, I understood that black music had a sound and a look 6 At night someone would always be hosting a rent party or a poker party, a tradition dating back a generation to the height of the Harlem Renaissance. Before the heroin game overtook the numbers game, before crack overtook heroin, before a US president moved his offices uptown, and before white people started pushing strollers across 110th Street, I knew a Harlem where you didn’t have to lock your front door. Growing Up in Harlem I’m old enough to remember another Harlem. (all quotes in this lookbook are from Dapper Dan himself, unless otherwise stated)īeginnings 00 Growing Up in Harlem 00 Getting into Fashion 00 A New Hustle 00 The Godfather of Hip-Hop Fashion The Original Influencer Now A Living Legend His boutique reopened in 2017 with a major partnership with Gucci. Known for their defiant appropriation of luxury heritage brand logos, his designs have been featured in exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, the Smithsonian Institution, The Museum at FIT, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of the City of New York, and London’s Design Museum. Introduction Daniel “Dapper Dan” Day is a Harlem-based streetwear fashion legend who operated an eponymous boutique in the 1980s outfitting hustlers, gangsters, athletes, and hip- hop artists. FASM 440 Dapper Dan A lookbook by Elizabeth Pamboukian ![]()
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