Open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, it soon became a must-go-to spot for hip-hop stars such as LL Cool J and athletes like Mike Tyson. Fashion designer Daniel R Day, known as Dapper Dan, considered the founder of logomania, opened Dapper Dan's Boutique in 1982 in Harlem. Logomania, where prominent branding is strewn over clothing, was hip hop's most distinctive trend in the early days, and a nod to this was seen recently in Pharrell's Louis Vuitton debut. "And the celebrities of our community became our superheroes, who made it possible for us to see ourselves in that space and beyond."
"The whole idea of being on yachts and caviar dreams, those were lifestyles we had no access to," Romero says, explaining that she grew up with hip hop herself. Hip-hop artists and their fans were from multicultural working-class neighbourhoods who would be unable to easily afford luxury brands. "That goes back to early roots, where so much of seemed so unattainable, and thus it was a status symbol," she tells BBC Culture. According to Elena Romero, co-curator of a recent Fashion Institute of Technology exhibition, Fresh, Fly, and Fabulous: Fifty Years of Hip Hop, part of hip hop's attraction to luxury brands is aspirational. It was that they were associated with preppiness and affluence. "Still to this day, people are dressing like that."īut there is more to the appeal of brands like Hilfiger and Ralph Lauren than just how the clothes looked. "She made it tomboy sexy," Andy Hilfiger, brother and business partner of Tommy, tells BBC Culture. We wanted to continue working with these exciting artists, so we started dressing stars of the time, including Puff Daddy, TLC, Destiny's Child and Wu-Tang."įor women, much of early hip-hop style came from re-working men's clothes, and in 1997 US hip-hop artist Aaliyah starred in a Tommy Hilfiger fashion campaign wearing low-rise jeans with a pair of the designer's boxers peeking out and a men's shirt cut into a bandeau top. Hilfiger recalls: "Snoop broadcast the brand to the world, wearing a red, white and blue striped rugby with 'Tommy' emblazoned across the chest on SNL." While Snoop Dogg's outfit doesn't appear out of the ordinary today, for many viewers at the time, it would have been the first sighting of a hip hop artist wearing Tommy Hilfiger, a brand now strongly associated with the genre. "Our designs had bold, bright colours, oversized silhouettes, and a playful prep vibe – they captured hip-hop's relaxed energy," says Hilfiger.
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Then came a Saturday Night Live TV performance by Snoop Dogg in March 1994. "He was co-signing the brand, and it gave us credibility." In the hip hop world, co-signing is when a usually successful artist endorses or supports another artist. "It was epic," Hilfiger tells BBC Culture.
The single featured a rap by Maxwell Dixon that explicitly shouts out the US designer Tommy Hilfiger. In 1992, Mary J Blige released What's the 411? as part of her debut album of the same name. Hip-hop lyrics have long declared the importance of fashion in the genre. Williams also continues a 50-year-long tradition of hip hop significantly influencing the fashion world. And, with it, Pharrell joins a line of famous black musicians who have dived head-first into the fashion industry, including Rihanna with the luxury brand Fenty and the lingerie brand Savage X Fenty Kanye West with Yeezy Beyonce with Ivy Park and Tyler the Creator's Golf le Fleur. While this is not Williams's first foray into the fashion world – he has collaborated with Louis Vuitton twice before, and with Chanel, Moncler and Adidas Originals – his role at Vuitton is his most significant fashion moment yet. It included vibrant faux-fur jackets, the brand's logo in bright colours across garments, and various camouflage pieces created by modifying Louis Vuitton's signature Damier print. Four months later, the revered musician and producer showcased his first collection at Paris Fashion Week. In February it was announced that Pharrell Williams would be the new men's creative director of Louis Vuitton – a role that became vacant after the unexpected death of the US fashion designer Virgil Abloh in November 2021.
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