Fresh, Fly, and Fabulous: Fifty Years of Hip Hop Style April 30, 2023

 Truth be told I am not a fan of Hip Hop. I was sure 50 years ago when it all began that it was a passing fad. Whoa! Was I ever wrong. Why am I not a fan? Mostly because I never understood a word in the songs. The fashion, however, was definitely something that caught my eye. Not enough to stop my wearing black all of the time but definitely eye-catching. Another truth is that I saw Fresh, Fly, and Fabulous: Fifty Years of Hip Hop Style at the Fashion Institute of Technology in February. The photo folder got lost amidst all of the other clutter on my desktop. So even though this exhibit ended last week I thought I would share what I saw. From the website (link above): ‘Over the last half century, hip hop has taken over the world. Its beginning is marked by Cindy and Clive Campbell’s (aka DJ Kool Herc) legendary back-to-school party held in the recreation room of  their apartment building in the Bronx on August 11, 1973. Since that time, hip hop has spread around the globe, lending its influence to innumerable spaces. Style is one of the most pervasive and visible manifestations of the culture, and twenty-first century fashion, from luxury labels to everyday dress, owes a debt to hip hop. The genre’s artists and fans transformed and popularized streetwear, athleisure, and logo-mania, to name only a few significant and enduring fashion movements.During the 1980s and 1990s, many brands distanced themselves from the hip hop market. A watershed moment occurred in 2004 when Sean Combs won the Menswear Designer of the Year Award from the Council of Fashion Designers of America. He was the first Black designer to achieve this honor and showed the industry that hip hop fashion was not only different from what they expected, it could not be ignored. The status of hip hop in fashion did not change overnight, but in 2023, hip hop references are pervasive, hip hop artists lend relevance and exposure to fashion brands, and designers steeped in the culture, from Virgil Abloh to Pharrell Williams and Rihanna, are well-respected in the industry’.