Dapper Dan was a notable harlem-based designer that used revolutionary technology ,for the time, to copy famous designer’s logos and create garments for the black community catering to gangsters, rappers, and the street scene of the late 70s-90s. The mission of the exhibit, Items: Is Fashion Modern?, is to pose a question, and cause the viewer to critically think about the role that fashion serves over time, solving problems and bending in regards to the different demands and needs of the various generations. The mission statement states ” fashion thrives on productive tensions between form and function, automation and craftsmanship, standardization and customization, universality and self-expression, and pragmatism and utopian vision”, encompassing almost all the themes that are potentially thought of when designing a garment, from both polar perspectives. In simpler terms, I would summarize it by saying, fashion thrives on supply and demand formulas, however, the social and artistic aspect is filled with questions, posing (‘either’/’or’) when crafting and designing garments for the market.
Dapper Dan answered a call from the black community: How can we look rich, warm, and fly*?
*fly; in this context and time period, fly is to look stylish and fashionable, however, there wasn’t a lot of diversity in the fashion community and a lot prejudices again blacks in terms of what designers they could afford or purchase. Many rappers had the funds to purchase real Louis Vuitton but opted out of it, because of the racial profiling that often happens in high-end stores and the general feeling of being unwelcome.
Dapper Dan is featured in the exhibit because of his nifty use of screen printing. In the pictures below, you can clearly see the Louis Vuittion logo being used on a bomber (coat), clearly not a usual silhouette of their clothing, because it isn’t. He understood that certain labels, carry a sense of elegance and grandeur with them, so why not manipulate the logo to bring a sense of luxury to your own designs? I did a lot of research on Dapper Dan because he was able to do what I aspire to execute, bridging fashion and activism together. He saw that attention wasn’t being given to the black community, so he delivered. In regards to Fashion History and Culture, what Dan did in the 80’s may not have seemed monumental, however, recently he was called on my Gucci to re-design a garment for their 2018, cruise collection, that was worn in 1988 by Olympian Diane Dixon (picture below). He is well respected in the black community because his designs were for our culture and community.
Lastly, I would like to touch on the role of the influencer. Influencer didn’t have the same meaning in the 1980s as it does now, especially sense social media wasn’t there to propel careers and brands. What occurred was, influential members of the black community wore his designs, and his clientele grew in response to others seeing his work; however another large component of his popularity was the use of luxury logos. It was very natural, especially since his clothing was also worn by middle and lower class families too; there wasn’t a monopoly. In Virginia Postrel’s ‘The Power of Glamour’, she touches the different shapes that glamour comes in . She writes, “Glamour takes many forms because both the objects that embody such longing and the longings themselves, vary from person to person”. I take this to be embodied in two ways in Dapper Dan’s garments; firstly, the use of high end logos reads to those, who see the importance of labels, however, secondly, as glamour changes from person to person, the care and individuality that is communicated through Dapper Dan’s garments is also another example of high quality.
Dapper Dan’s jacket being worn in the 80’s
Group of Black artists in Dapper Dan garments
Olympian Diane Dixon, 1988
CITITATIONS:
Postrel, Virginia I. The Power of Glamour: Longing and the Art of Visual Persuasion. Simon & Schuster Papberbacks, 2017.
Cooper, Barry Michael. “The Fashion Outlaw Dapper Dan.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 3 June 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/06/03/fashion/dapper-dan-harlem-gucci.html.
