Hip hop Fashion:STYLE

Hip hop Fashion:STYLE
05:47 Oct 7, 2020
http://www.coreybarksdale.com/african_american_artist_paintings.html  In the late 1970s, established sportswear and fashion brands, such as Le Coq Sportif, Kangol, Adidas and Pro-Keds, attached themselves to the emerging hip hop scene.  During the 1980s, hip hop icons wore clothing items such as brightly colored name-brand tracksuits, sheepskin and leather bomber jackets,[1] Clarks shoes,[1] Britishers a.k.a. British Walkers, and sneakers (usually Pro-Keds, Puma, Converse's Chuck Taylor All-stars, and Adidas Superstars often with "phat" or oversized shoelaces). Popular haircuts ranged from the early-1980s Jheri curl to the early-1990s hi-top fade popularized by Will Smith (The Fresh Prince) and Christopher "Kid" Reid of Kid 'n Play, among others. Another trend in hip hop clothing was pioneered by Dapper Dan in the early 1980s with the adaptation and brandishing of high-net-worth fashion house brands such as Louis Vuitton, Fendi, and Gucci and logos in custom-designed tracksuits, jackets, and mink coats.  Popular accessories included large eyeglasses (Cazals[2]),[1] Kangol bucket hats,[1] nameplates,[1] name belts,[1] and multiple rings. Heavy gold jewelry was also popular in the 1980s; heavy jewelry in general would become an enduring element of hip hop fashion.[3] In general, men's jewelry focused on heavy gold chains and women's jewelry on large gold earrings.[3] Performers such as Kurtis Blow and Big Daddy Kane helped popularize gold necklaces and other such jewelry, and female rappers such as Roxanne Shanté and the group Salt-N-Pepa helped popularize oversized gold door-knocker earrings. The heavy jewelry was suggestive of prestige and wealth, and some have connected the style to Africanism. MC Schoolly D, for instance, claimed that wearing gold "is not something that was born and raised in America. This goes back to Africa... the artists in the rap field are battling. We're the head warriors. We got to stand up and say we're winning battles, and this is how we're doing it."[4]  1980s hip hop fashion is remembered as one of the most important elements of old school hip hop, and is often celebrated in nostalgic hip hop songs such as Ahmad's 1994 single "Back in the Day", and Missy Elliott's 2002 single of the same name.  According to Gwendolyn O'Neal, the author of African American Aesthetics of Dress (1997), "while an African-American aesthetic of dress is neither African nor American, it is shaped by unique ‘cultural’ experiences resulting from being of African descent and living in America."[5] The rapper Jay-Z echoed this in a Black Book Magazine interview; he defended the upper-class tastes of fashion in the hip hop culture as "living it on our terms, instead of trying to emulate an elite lifestyle" with the wearing of high-net-worth fashion house brands. It is not necessarily because of conspicuous consumption that the hip hop lifestyle brought in these high end fashion products.[5] 
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