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After decades of being shunned by premium brands time has proven Hip-Hop is your favorite tastemaker’s tastemaker. One of our elders recently gave the skinny on the culture became such a force.
Last week our genre broke more barriers like never before. On September 15 famed auction house Sotheby’s sold off some rather iconic Rap collectibles. The sale was a first ever occasion for the brand with The Notorious B.I.G.’s Rap Pages crown going to market for a price tag of $594,750. High Snobiety partnered with Sotheby’s in a panel that examined “The Rise Of Hip-Hop”. One of the featured guests on the special session was none other than Dapper Dan. His insight truly showed that what the South Bronx created has transformed the world.
When asked about pivotal moments in Hip-Hop fashion he pointed to the Eric B. & Rakim Follow The Leader album cover. “When you look at the jackets that I did for Eric B. & Rakim, you see the Five Percenter sign on one, but it’s a Gucci jacket. It’s royal, it’s gold and black, and that all Rakim, he’s Five Percenter. And when you look at Erik B. he represents Gucci. That would be one major pivotal point in fashion” he stated.
He pinpoints where in his mind Hip-Hop fashion took a turn for the worse. “We lost it when the hip-hop brands came in, they didn’t identify with each individual artist, they went into cookie-cutter street fashion and that changed the flavor of how you interpret the culture, there’s no more individuality” he explained. “There were these new brands that were emerging and everyone was dressing straight out of the brand”.
You can learn more about the auction here.
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