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[hip-hop instrumental music playing]
[Misa Hylton] Women in hip-hop fashion don't always get the light we deserve,
in some instances the respect that we deserve.
And we've always been there from the beginning.
[April Walker] I was always very concerned
about putting out there that I was a female,
because of double oppression.
We have gender and race.
Black culture, Black fashion, Black bodies is always cool
as long as it's not on Black people.
And that's the notion that we've been disrupting.
[Dapper Dan] Hip-hop is the first platform ever
that we've been able to make real progress with globally.
Others has always capitalized off our cultural platform.
Our music, and our fashion, we keep creating new culture.
This is our time.
Remixing has a long history. It's very old.
You have to go back to slavery.
We as Black people, we had nothing.
But we had an incredible imagination.
We've combined that with a sense of survival.
We would take the oftentimes discarded clothing of the white establishment
and make it our own.
We would put different things together that shouldn't be together,
and yet it creates something new, and exciting, and different
that was unexpected.
So, that same idea of deconstruction
is part of the Black experience in this country.
[Walker] It's all the same landscape of African Americans
that wanted to express pain, express creativity that's on the inside.
And we have to pour it somewhere,
and so hip-hop became the somewhere for our culture, and our time period.
[hip-hop instrumental music playing]
[Mimi Valdes] Hip-hop started to have its own community,
its own dances, its own style.
Just showing a different side of fashion
that I don't think anyone had ever seen before.
[Bevy Smith] Misa Hylton came along and really upped the ante.
She took traditional fashion, looks, and a style and a sprit,
and she gave it that Black edge.
She's responsible for some of the most amazing looks that we've seen in hip-hop.
I mean, people need to know her name.
Ah! I'm home. I love this store so much.
It brings back so many memories.
[Hylton] Fashion for African American people
is extremely important.
It's something that we take pride in.
It is how we express ourselves.
-Mmm-hmm. -Like the red...
Right...
[Hylton] It's just so natural,
you know, the way that we do our hair, the way that we get dressed every day,
the fashion that we gravitate to.
It's so interesting, and it's different.
It inspired me as a child.
But I never could've imagined
how powerful what I created as a stylist would become,
and how it has gone so far out,
it has gone around the world and come back.
Misa always took it over the top.
We were always together, hanging out.
I wasn't really big on fashion. But Misa always stood out.
Misa was in her early teens.
I woke up one morning and Misa came, her hair was blonde,
almost a platinum blonde.
I said, "Misa, what did you do to your hair?"
She said, "I was out in the sun."
Now... [chuckles]
[Hylton] Hip-hop music led me to the fashion.
Growing up, rap came on the radio Friday night and Saturday night.
I would have my stereo on, pause, play, record,
ready to tape the hottest songs that were out.
And I would lay across my purple rug, and I would daydream.
[hip-hop music playing]
Everything about hip-hop, the words, the beat, the energy
inspired me to think about wardrobe,
and I would be styling these artists in my head.
I grew up naive thinking that
most of these rappers that I was looking up to dressed themselves.
And then, I found out that it was Misa Hylton behind these iconic looks,
and when you find out the people behind it,
it makes the story of that more special.
Misa essentially informed a generation of everything.
And I knew that I wanted to do that also.
[piano music playing]
[Jean-Raymond] I started designing when I was 13.
I've been designing now for 18 years.
As a kid I was really into brands like Karl Kani, Cross Colours, FUBU.
I was interested in design that was made by people that looked like me.
Hip-hop taught me everything I knew about fashion.
In high school, when I would walk around 5th Avenue,
I couldn't afford anything,
but I would go window shop
whichever of these stores that I felt comfortable enough to walk into.
I would only pick the names that I recognized from hip-hop songs.
[hip-hop music playing]
"Roxanne, Roxanne," that was my inspiration.
["Roxanne's Revenge" playing]
To see a young woman who looked like me,
that let me know that there was a place for me in hip-hop.
♪ Well, my name is Roxanne A-don't ya know ♪
♪ I just a-cold rock a party And I do this show ♪
I literally remember freezing in my bedroom,
being very confused because this sounded like someone who was my age.
She was cursing, and she was dissing dudes with the hottest record in New York.
♪ He would be fired ♪
♪ He wears a Kangol, and that is cute ♪
♪ He ain't got money And he ain't got the loot ♪
The next day at school, everybody was talking about it,
because we had just never heard a girl spit like that before.
♪ The R-O-X-A-N-N-E ♪
A lot of the early female pioneers, like Lisa Lee,
Debbie D, Roxanne, people like that,
oftentimes their style would be in line with what men were wearing.
[funk music playing]
[Elena Romero] In the early days of hip-hop,
women had to actually hide their femininity.
Even wearing pink would be considered a sign of weakness.
[Valdes] In the video, she put this fur coat on.
I remember being like, wow,
that just seemed so crazy to me that someone could have that sort of
Upper East Side rich-lady style,
but it did not look like the ladies on the Upper East Side.
[Holman] With hip-hop, there's a style, there's a look.
Everything had to look brand-new. Brand-new Lee jeans.
Brand-new IZOD shirts.
Brand-new sneakers.
If you stepped on their sneakers and ruined their sneakers,
that was a fight. You could die behind that.
And these are poor and working-class kids.
You take something that has been established,
that has its own history,
and you recreate it to address your needs, your comforts, your fit, your mood.
And not only do you recreate it,
but you claim it, you own it, and you make it yours.
Hip-hop has a love affair with luxury brands,
because it symbolizes the fact that you've made it.
[Smith] It didn't necessarily have to be about it being a label,
maybe you're wearing a pair of jodhpurs, and you're never going to ride a horse.
Or I remember a whole summer we just wore tennis outfits,
including carrying around tennis rackets.
And we did not play any tennis.
[hip-hop music playing]
[Rhonda Garelick] These logo names and luxury goods
often come to stand in for political and personal freedom
that they're not about, right.
They're about exclusion and reappropriating them can feel liberating.
But I think even more liberating is to ironize them,
like a Dapper Dan has done.
[funk music playing]
I knew growing up poor, holes in my shoes,
how transformative being able to dress could mean.
Like, no matter where you live,
if you've got a beautiful outfit, and you put it on, and you go downtown,
nobody's better than you.
Fashion houses was becoming popular.
But people in Harlem weren't familiar with that yet.
But I saw that this might be something.
One day a customer came in, and they had a Louis Vuitton pouch.
Everybody knew this guy was a big-time hustler,
so everybody was admiring the pouch.
And I thought to myself,
if they were that excited over that pouch,
imagine how excited they would be
if I can make them complete outfits just like that pouch.
So I began the journey to teach myself textile printing.
So now I got a brand-new luxury item that could have these people with money
be identified that I'm rich, I made it, that I'm somebody.
I'm Dapper Dan from Dapper Dan's Boutique, East 125th Street in Harlem,
and I'm the designer for the stars.
Something that we're doing here for LL.
The style is African, but the logo is more American.
The gold and black, they're into the designer-looking things.
Gold and black like that. This is the rich designer guy look.
Dapper Dan was a cut-up artist.
He cut up these logos,
a Louis Vuitton logo, or a Gucci logo, or an MCM logo,
and he's deconstructing them,
and twisting them, and turning them into something it was never meant to be.
But it looks dope, so I'm going to rock it.
-♪ Party to the music ♪ -♪ Get up and dance to the music ♪
He elevated the game.
-♪ Dance to the music ♪ -♪ Get up and dance to the music ♪
Not only was he customizing clothes,
but in fact he had a custom body shop in East Harlem
well before MTV had Pimp Your Ride.
Everybody was trying to outdo everybody, that's it.
Some guys could only afford to get their tire covered.
Other guys could get their whole top done.
All of this is showing a level of achievement.
When I opened up that store,
I knew the clients that I was going to be dealing with
were night people, gangsters and hustlers.
Why not just open 24 hours a day, so that I can cater to the night people?
Because the streets was teeming with money at night.
My friend said, "Let's go visit Dapper Dan's."
And it was like the Willy Wonka of fashion for me.
When I walked in, I was overwhelmed
because it was a vertical operation that had all the tailors.
And he was making Gucci and Louis Vuitton
better than they were making those styles at that time.
And then he was 24/7, right? Genius.
After visiting Dapper Dan's, it was like an epiphany that went off.
We do not have this in Brooklyn.
Fashion in Effect was my first shop in the heart of Bed-Stuy.
Fashion in Effect was this, like,
melting pot of anybody from graffiti artists,
to Biggie Smalls walking into this tiny little hole-in-the-wall.
Our customers would say, "I want deeper pockets."
At the time men couldn't even fit their hands all the way in their pockets.
"We want our bottoms to be able to fit
inside of the Timberland or outside of the Timberland."
And from that we made something called the "rough and rugged suit."
And it just caught on.
And so I knew we have something here.
I decided, I'm going to start a clothing line.
So that was the beginning of Walker Wear.
I decided not to be at the forefront of the brand,
because I knew if I market the fact
that there's a female behind a menswear brand, it's gonna fail.
People wondered if it was Jam Master Jay's line,
they wondered if it was Treach's line, because he repped it a lot.
I didn't do a lot of interviews at that time.
I let the product pave the way.
After it became mainstream,
then people said, "Oh, it's April, okay."
I almost feel like I had to be like "A-ha, fooled you."
Women have always had to figure out being taken seriously.
And I'll never forget the best advice I got from a fashion executive
who told me, "Elena, for you to succeed in this business,
you have to keep in mind three things.
First, a man wants to see if he can fuck you.
Then, he wants to see if he can fuck you over.
And lastly, he wants to see if he can fucking get you out the picture.
If you can keep these three things in mind,
then you can go a long way."
[Hylton] When you are a woman in hip-hop fashion,
you are someone who gives to the culture a lot of times behind the scenes.
That hasn't always been easy for us.
When I was about 15 years old,
I went to the Apollo Theater to see Ice Cube,
and I saw a familiar face.
And that was Sean Combs.
Sean and I started to talk. We exchanged phone numbers.
Early on I noticed how ambitious this guy was.
Shortly after we started dating, he became A&R director at Uptown Records.
One of Sean's first artists where he got to oversee the whole album
was a Jodeci project.
Up until that point, R&B singers dressed up most of the time.
But Puffy had this idea to create a look for them
that was really edgy, and that would appeal to our demographic.
I was hanging out at Uptown Records one day after high school,
and Sean told me that he needed to go into Andre's office
and let him know what the idea was.
So he asked me to come into the meeting with him.
We were nervous, we were like, "Okay, so you going to say this?
You going to say this? Okay, I'm going to tell him about the combat boots.
I'm going to tell him about the hoodies."
We get into the room,
Andre Harrell is sitting behind his desk, and he's like,
"Absolutely not. Are you kidding me?
These guys are singers. You're making them look like rappers."
And we were like, "But that's what's going to make it hot."
He was like, "No."
Two hours later, we talked him into it, and that was the "I Gotta Love" video.
♪ Your place or mine Tell me what will it be ♪
♪ I've got something I would like for you to see ♪
[Joan Morgan] I had kind of heard rumors that there was a Jodeci video,
and that Puffy was also a stylist. And I was like, "How he is a stylist?
I don't understand what's going on."
And then Misa's name started to come up,
and I was like, "Oh, okay, so there was another vision there."
♪ I got a treat for you Don't be afraid, baby ♪
The role that Misa played, and why I feel Misa was so successful
is that she was like one of the great interpretators
of what the subculture really wants.
She really understands the street.
-♪ Tell me ♪ -♪ I gotta love ♪
That look became so popular that a lot of R&B male groups modeled it.
And that was my first experience as a fashion stylist.
I didn't realize that styling was a career.
I didn't realize it was something that you could get paid to do,
but I knew that I loved it from the beginning.
♪ I gotta love ♪
[Gabriel Held] Starting in the early '90s,
it was actually a real turning point in the way that fashion
was utilized in the world of hip-hop.
[Valdes] We saw a lot of this stuff happening in the streets.
But the big fashion brands ignored hip-hop for a really long time.
They were just not interested.
You had some brands actually trying to actively discourage people,
particularly in the hip-hop community and so on, from wearing their brands.
[Smith] When I first got the Vibe magazine,
I worked with this incredible fashion director at the time, Emil Wilbekin.
And we would just create magic.
[hip-hop music playing]
We were told by so many people, including people internally,
that I would never be able to get
the Guccis, and the Pradas, and the Armanis, and the Diors
to advertise in the magazine
because they just didn't see the urban consumer as a viable consumer.
I walked into these offices of these fashion houses,
and they would say
urban fashion was perhaps a trend, it was something that would go away.
And that's when I started taking over James Van Der Zee books
to show them that there was a legacy and a heritage
of Black people being incredibly stylish.
People slowly but surely began to understand
who we were and that, you know, we deserved to be spoken to
and to be acknowledged.
That moment in time, it was the perfect alliance of the stars.
We had MTV playing hip-hop videos.
We had In Living Color, Fresh Prince of Bel Air.
We had Vibe and Source.
The music industry was at its peak.
Music videos had big budgets.
In the mid-'90s,
we had some of the most expensive music videos to ever be produced.
The music industry was just the starting point.
If the record sales are hot, so are the brands.
There was money to be made.
These new urban brands started learning the ins and outs of the business.
The trade show at the time to be in
and to show your wares was Magic International in Las Vegas.
[Walker] I remember the first Magic show.
They said, "We can't put you on the floor with Calvin Klein and these guys,
because there is no market for you. What are you?
We can give you that little room over there, though, you can take that,
with Cross Colours and Karl Kani."
We sent out invites. It said, "Come serve your sentence,"
and we created a jail cell for the room.
And at that show, we each rolled like $2 million,
and so what do you think happened that next show?
We were on the floor.
[Romero] Here come these brands like Walker Wear, FUBU, Karl Kani,
that have the support of hip-hop artists, endorsements by artists,
and they were just growing by leaps and bounds.
[Walker] Our brand started growing globally,
so we had Japanese distributors, we were selling in London and Europe.
♪ What's in your mind's eye This is what you believe you should gain ♪
In the '90s, there was a lot of great international momentum.
[Stefano Tonchi] Music was the message, and style came through music.
I spent a lot of time DJing,
and we're talking about a time when things didn't travel so fast.
I mean, in order to listen to hip-hop music,
you have to come to New York and buy the records.
♪ What's the meaning of life? ♪
I remember coming back to Italy
with these big, like, suitcases full of records.
And then playing the new records, and you know, trying to scratch.
That was like the big thing to do if you were a DJ,
and you had the Italian kids trying to do break dancing.
♪ Feel the feeling Let your body take control ♪
That's how style could travel. It traveled through music.
-♪ Well, come on, come on ♪ -♪ Feel the feeling ♪
[Walker] Just thinking about how that was translating
in every hood around the world, that was key,
and it really changed the game for fashion as well,
because artists definitely were the influencers, and still are.
["I'm Goin' Down" playing]
♪ Time on my hands ♪
♪ Since you been away, boy ♪
Each generation has their way of expressing themselves.
And then our generation, everyone was like, "Hip-hop style,
my God, this is hot," you know.
♪ Ooh, baby ♪
♪ I'm goin' down ♪
♪ 'Cause you ain't around, baby ♪
♪ My whole world's upside down ♪
Mary J. Blige is the first female artist that I had ever worked with.
She just had this hip-hop style.
She had the door-knocker earrings, the oversized sweater, the Girbaud jeans,
the Timberland boots.
She was able to bring a hip-hop swagger to the R&B arena.
-[Blige] Yeah, look at that. Yeah. -I love that. It's cute.
Misa's just really courageous, and really ahead.
-I can see you thinking everything. -Everything.
Yeah, remember your coat like this?
The Mongolian, I was just telling... I was like...
[Blige] I'm a little safe,
so a lot of things I wouldn't do, she gave me the courage to do.
I was a little nervous about feminization, because I was always dressed like a guy,
because I wanted to be,
because it made me comfortable in the industry...
full of men that we were in.
I was cool with a baggy Armani suit.
I was cool with my hat turned back, because I was always a tomboy anyway.
I always used fashion as a armor even before I was a star.
And that's why I love Misa because she helped me to be unguarded in that way.
She helped me to trust her in that way.
Because I wouldn't trust anybody.
I mean, I wouldn't trust anybody.
I wouldn't trust Puffy.
I was like, "No, I'm not wearing those shorts.
No, no, no."
♪ I shoulda have left your ass A thousand times ♪
What was brilliant to me about what Misa did is she met Mary where she was.
A hard lip line, for example.
In more elevated beauty practices, you would smudge that out,
because it would be seen as
a relic back from like hood days, or chola days.
And Misa was like, "No, I think we should keep those elements
and then build something really beautiful around that."
♪ No, I'm not gonna cry It's not worth the time ♪
♪ 'Cause you're not worth my tears ♪
♪ Well, I'm not gon' cry ♪
♪ I'm not gonna shed no tears 'Cause you lied ♪
[Blige] I was always growing and evolving.
The evolution is just having the courage to be you, do you,
and that's what I've learned to do.
[Hylton] Lil' Kim was a gift from God.
I really got to stretch my creativity.
She loved to show her sex appeal, and that was something different.
Lil' Kim came out showing a tit or two
and being like, "My femininity, and my being female is an asset
as opposed to like a hindrance to overcome."
[Smith] She looked like a lady who was reclining
on the chaise lounge in the mansion from ill-gotten gains.
And I think Misa was the one
who really was able to facilitate that look.
["Crush on You" playing]
-♪ Undeas ♪ -♪ Uh-huh ♪
♪ Lil Kim, the Queen Bee So you best take heed ♪
♪ Shall I proceed? ♪
[Held] "Crush on You."
I mean, it was just wild at the time to do monochromatic hair, clothes, jewelry.
[Hylton] There were people that were like, "Colored hair to match your mink coats?
Are you kidding me? That looks like a clown."
Back at that time that had never been done before in that way.
And I caught a little resistance, but I fought for my idea.
♪ Just keep this on the hush ♪
When the world got to see it,
it was like the horse was out the stable, that's it.
And that was the moment that both of our careers changed forever.
Our phones were ringing off the hook.
Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, we were front row at every major fashion show.
MAC wanted Lil' Kim to be in their ad.
We changed what the female rapper looked like.
♪ Hey, Mami ♪
[crowd cheering]
Misa created that purple pasty look
from the MTV Video Awards in 1999.
Just a really fabulous little doily almost.
People keep calling that a pasty, but it looked more like a doily,
something like that would be on your grandmother's curio cabinet or something.
♪ You sexy Hey, Mami, you're cute ♪
That look is iconic. It has been replicated by everyone.
♪ Cute ♪
Stylists are often these behind-the-scenes people
that the world doesn't know,
but they are really shaping what fashion and the culture looks like moving forward.
[Jean-Raymond] A great stylist is a true image architect.
So much of our story is in what we wear.
It can identify your happiness or your pain.
If I can help to tell your story a little better, then I'm doing my job.
For as long as I remember I always wanted to be a designer.
My apartment was covered wall to wall with sketches,
and I finally came up with these are the pieces that I want to make.
And I gave one of the camouflage leather jackets
that I made to a friend of mine,
and he gave it to a friend of his,
and that friend of his gave it to his client, which was Rihanna.
We went viral, and I had no business in place.
I had no name for the company.
I put up the website that day,
and that was how Pyer Moss was born, it was kind of born by accident.
There's always a underlying hip-hop element to everything that I do
because that's who I am.
My first, uh, stylist was Jay-Z.
There's Jay-Z telling us to wear button-ups and not jerseys,
and me walking around with a XXL button-up with a French cuff,
and Biggie wearing Coogi and all that stuff,
that's who I looked up to.
[Biggie rapping]
♪ Competition ripper ever since 13 ♪
♪ Used to steal clothes I was considered a thief ♪
♪ Until I started hustlin' On Fulton Street ♪
B.I.G. was one of the fashion icons
that showed you how you can definitely go from ashy to classy.
♪ I put hoes in NY onto DKNY ♪
-♪ Miami, DC prefer Versace ♪ -♪ That's right ♪
♪ All Philly hoes go with Moschino ♪
[Valdes] Biggie, you know, a lot of lyrics about Versace.
He could not even fit into those clothes, but he loved Versace, right?
You know, they didn't have big and tall like that for these high-end brands.
So, the stylists would find these fabrics,
and they would basically make everything custom for B.I.G.
That's what came about from Dapper Dan.
♪ At last, a nigga rappin' About blunts and broads ♪
Dapper Dan was making clothing, using these different monogrammed prints
that did not belong to him.
And so, he was shut down for copyright infringement.
You know what triggered it? Mike Tyson having the fight in the store.
[reporter] While last night's fight didn't make Tyson any money,
it might have cost him a fortune.
But a number of nagging questions won't go away.
Why was the World Heavyweight Champion shopping in Harlem for a leather jacket
ironically embroidered with the phrase, "Don't believe the hype,"
at four o'clock in the morning?
All of a sudden it was like, "Wait a minute,
Dapper Dan's, what's going on here?"
And then it culminated in the most famous raid of all time.
The most famous fashion raid of all time.
Sotomayor, who was the lawyer for Fendi, came and raided the store, personally.
Sotomayor, before she was Supreme Justice, she came to the store.
I had a black leather coat.
She looked at it that coat, she say, "Wow, this guy really belongs downtown."
I appreciate that, but she took everything with her.
[somber music playing]
Eventually, the raids became so many to where I had to go underground.
So what I would do is I would hit every Black city from New York City,
going west to Chicago, and then I come back,
hit every Black city from New York City to Atlanta.
When I got there, I knew all the major gangsters,
because they used to come to the store,
and that's how I sustained the business while I was underground.
I think I taught the luxury brands as well.
You know, because it just kept spreading.
[Held] In the late '90s,
this interesting relationship began
where the designers were actually being inspired
by the subversion and reinterpretation of their work into this urban context.
[woman] In New York, Charlotte Neuville hits home with homeboy chic.
And in Paris, Chanel accessories are piled on for rappin' street style.
All of a sudden, all the big magazines from GQ, to Vogue, to W, to Details,
they were the purveyors of style, and what everyone looked to.
They all looked to us.
They recognized the power of, I guess, you can say,
the tanning of America,
the effect of what we were bringing in, it driving their sales.
It was the beginning of the end. [laughs]
We create culture but don't participate in the longevity of it
in terms of the business part of it.
It's funny, I think at the height of Walker Wear...
[sighs]
...everyone was congratulating me,
and I felt so empty inside, because there was so little creativity.
It was really hard to see
if you covered up five jean jacket logos, whose was who.
Because it was all about a markup.
What would make the most money that fast?
And so slowly and gradually,
that thread kept unraveling for me,
and I remember going one day
and just being like, "I'm out, I'm out."
[reporter] It's called file-sharing,
thousands of sites offering free music
are rattling the multi-billion dollar recording industry.
The record companies say they will lose billions in sales
because fans are getting their music for free.
[Romero] This unfettered access to music threw everything into chaos.
The money left the music industry.
We didn't have these major multi-million-dollar fashion budgets
for these elaborate videos anymore.
The music industry as we once knew it
was no longer in existence.
[Hylton] That was a tough time in my career.
The artists that I styled,
when they blew up, and they got to a certain point,
you know, Vogue wanted them, and Harper's Bazaar,
and all the high-end magazines,
they wanted to bring in another stylist to execute my look.
There were moments that my clients would insist that I be there,
so there were times I could be on set, and sometimes collaborate.
But over time, some of my opportunities went away.
Hi, Naomi.
I was paying employees,
those insurances, those taxes,
and then I had two children in college.
The bills were coming, the money wasn't coming in.
I didn't understand how to use money as a tool,
and so... I spread myself too thin.
I could not keep afloat without making some sacrifices.
I realized that I had to make a choice.
Keeping my business afloat, or letting my place go.
My sacrifice was to give up my home.
I would spend a lot of time in my car, I would sleep in my car,
I would stay at the train station by the water,
because water is like one of my favorite places to be.
It was my peace, it was my sanctuary.
I don't know if I would want to go through something like that again.
But being in that place allowed me to see the world differently.
[train horn blaring]
[Jean-Raymond] When American fashion is spoken about,
Misa Hylton is left out of the conversation.
It's unfortunate that Misa wasn't styling shows back then,
and doing Vogue editorials, and things like that.
It's partially because of the industry that she was working in,
it's partially race.
At Pyer Moss, I didn't really want anyone knowing
that I was Black. Like, the first year or so I hid my face.
I didn't do interviews.
And then in the summer of 2015,
a shift happened for me.
I went from just trying to sell clothes
to now being in the shitstorm of this news cycle
as it pertained to Mike Brown and Trayvon Martin.
You know, Nina Simone always says, like... Has always said that
if your art doesn't reflect the times, then what's the point, right?
Our SS16 collection,
which was the "Black Lives Matter" collection,
we showed that collection to the stores in June,
and that was probably like
our best-selling collection still to this day.
We got a sponsorship from one of these makeup brands.
I used all of it to self-produce this documentary.
Today would have been 28 years from my mom...
[Jean-Raymond] We went to different family members of victims' houses,
like Eric Garner's family,
to put these people in this conversation of
what it means to have empathy for Black people.
[static]
We showed that ahead of the runway,
so all these people came out
under the guise that they were going to see this collection,
and I essentially kidnapped them,
and forced them to watch these brutal videos.
All the models were dressed in, like, blank canvas.
I had Gregory Siff come out
and paint on these models, and like "Breathe, breathe, breathe."
Writing the names
of police brutality victims on these boots,
and, like, spray-painting red paint to make it look like blood.
And all those orders got canceled.
I lost four of my major accounts.
I think we lost, like, 70%.
I definitely lost like high six figures after that show,
and what was going through my head was,
"I just committed career suicide."
[Holman] We as Black people need to find our voice and our place.
Looking towards the future in a technological way,
that's where our true freedom,
our true ability to express ourselves will exist.
And that's what's going on today.
[Romero] With the advent of social media, the game changed.
Technology became empowering.
Social media has been so deeply important, I think, to the world at large,
and specifically to Black people.
I think it's given us a great expansion
of the ways in which we could exist and be powerful.
[camera shutter clicking]
[Sulmers] I don't think I would've been able to have a career in fashion
if not for the digital revolution.
I tried to work at Vogue,
I sent my resume over there so many times,
and heard "no" more times than I could count.
And, because I started a website,
I've been able to be successful.
And that's the beauty of this digital era.
Outsiders of fashion can now create their own movement.
[camera shutter clicking]
[Walker] We're moving so far in the future so fast,
we're a lot more advanced than when I started.
Now being able to go straight directly to consumer,
that's exciting to me.
I decided to pick Walker Wear back up off the shelf.
It just made sense.
The relaunch of Walker Wear, a lot of it just came
from just thinking about how can I tell our history?
The new generation needs to know our history.
So I'm showing it through product,
telling our stories,
picking up the bullhorn with social media.
[audience applauding]
And I can go around the world, storytell, show dope product,
collaborate with the best of the best
in India, in Europe, Japan, home in Brooklyn.
That's so inspiring, exciting, and I just want to keep doing that.
[Kingori] On a global level,
hip-hop and fashion is really interesting.
If you look at Korea, for example,
Korean street style,
I think it's the best street style in the world,
because people are really out there
to show their personality through clothes.
Fashion can be unique to one culture,
but at the same time it can be trans-cultural.
Not geographically bound in any way,
especially in the digital age.
Particularly for Seoul,
being a city that's probably the most connected in the world,
99% Internet connected,
everything is instantaneous,
and so youth are constantly consuming
culture from outside, from inside, and then sharing it.
[Yoonmirae rapping]
♪ When the world keeps spinning Like a windmill ♪
♪ Whatever happen, keep it colder Than a windchill ♪
♪ Until then, just go, we gon' win still ♪
[Yoonmirae] I used to focus more on Korean rhymes
because I'm, you know, based in Korea,
but I think as the Internet started to get so big,
the world basically shrank,
so now people can just find you on the Internet.
♪ I'm confident but not boastful ♪
♪ Bilingual bicoastal ♪
♪ Soul food in Seoul, Korea ♪
♪ While playing music that's soulful ♪
♪ New York, I'm in SoHo ♪
♪ Melrose, I'm on the West Coast ♪
♪ Say a toast with my day ones ♪
[Fischer] Kids that grew up with the Internet,
that grew up having the entire human knowledge base
inside their pockets.
Having all this information readily available
just gives them a very different point of view.
You can go to some little town
and the kid is probably wearing the same thing
than the cool kid in New York City,
you know, because they have the same access to information.
I don't think that's ever been the case before.
[Held] As Black American culture becomes high fashion,
eventually it gets reinterpreted into, like, the suburban white kid context.
And then I think it's a very important conversation to have
about appreciation versus appropriation.
♪ Come to your river ♪
♪ I will come to your river ♪
♪ Come to your river Wash my soul ♪
♪ I will come to your river Wash my soul ♪
[Sulmers] Gucci's "Resort 2018" collection,
they sent down a jacket with puff sleeves
that was reminiscent of a design made by Dapper Dan in the '80s.
Social media caught on to it,
and they started leaving comments on Gucci's page.
They started writing posts saying
that Gucci copied Dapper Dan's designs without giving him credit.
It was the "Black Twitter mafia"
that put the word out,
and made it clear that if y'all are gonna do this,
y'all need to pay homage to who did it first.
And so because of all this online furor,
Gucci relented, and they said,
"Okay, we're going to acknowledge that we did reference him.
And now, we're actually going to work together."
All the brands with the logos, nobody was putting that on clothes.
Now they all do it.
Every brand, not just Gucci, everybody.
And that all comes from Dapper Dan.
-[Dapper Dan] Whoa! -[Hylton] Hey, Dap.
-What's up, princess? Look at you. -How are you?
-It's so good to see you. -Man, look at you, look at you.
Look at you. [laughs]
-This place is beautiful. -Yeah, have a seat.
-Look at this. -I love that.
-Wow. -Yeah.
-I love it here. -Man.
How does this feel? That's what I want to know.
-This is like... -I didn't believe it.
[laughs]
How did it feel? I did not believe it, man, this was like...
Misa, this was like a "pinch me" situation.
Mmm-hmm.
I mean, to come from, like, the underground...
-Yep. -...and do it, and then do it like this,
this is... This is exciting. You know, and you know what?
-I'm glad you wore them colors today. -Really?
-You know why? -Why?
Because this remind me of when you did that video for Puffy.
-Yes. Yeah. -With the white and black.
Black, you know, that was Black Rob, right?
♪ Always get stuck for bling bling ♪
♪ I represent "A" block in Sing Sing ♪
[Dapper Dan] Fendi is copying that now.
♪ Moves for paper Booze, no chaser ♪
I said, "Hold up, man, hold up,
y'all got to give the props out."
-Yeah. -Don't start this all over again.
[Hylton] Right, all over again.
[both laughing]
You know. I mean, you don’t want
Black Twitter kicking y'all in the butt, boy.
-Yeah. -That was Misa's look.
♪ Ain't no way you can take this from me ♪
♪ Ain't...funny ♪
♪ Shake it, honey ♪
[Dapper Dan] You have to understand how woven you are into my story.
We needed so bad for you to come along.
You know that? You've set the stage for what's going on now.
And you see all the sisters on the front covers now?
Imagine, that could never have happened back then.
I remember when it wasn't that way,
and I remember our conversations,
and just building, and just like that... [snaps fingers] Everything changed.
Isn't that funny about life? It's like just like that.
-Yeah. Okay. -Thank you.
-I love you. -I love you so much.
[Kingori] You know what's so interesting
with Misa Hylton and all that she has done,
because I was not aware of her
and all of these amazing accomplishments until relatively recently.
And that made Vogue say,
"Well, who are the other women
who are relatively hidden in mainstream culture
who people should know
that they're behind the scenes making it all magical?"
So we're featuring women
who are running music companies,
producers creating beats,
artists in a space that's very male-dominated.
I see diversity coming through,
but not quickly enough.
I'm the first woman to be the publishing director of British Vogue
in over 100 years,
but also at GQ I was the first woman.
I was also the youngest woman,
and, and, and, right?
If I'm the only Black woman,
or woman, or person of color
around a table, then I feel comfortable there
because I know that I'm making a change.
[Jean-Raymond] We're living through another Renaissance.
This is another period of enlightenment.
Like Solange, A Seat at the Table.
You have, like, Black Panther.
All of these different things where we can show that we're beautiful,
and not be apologetic about it.
Wait a minute.
[Kingori] We're in this incredible space
where fashion's embracing things that used to be deemed ghetto,
and people who used to be deemed ghetto,
as actually being individuals,
as actually being a new kind of rock star.
[Valdes] Especially when it comes to women,
there seems to be just more confidence.
We have all this power,
and I think a lot of that comes from just seeing the evolution of hip-hop.
[Morgan] For young women artists now,
they aren't entering into the same space
that Latifah, or MC Lyte,
or even Lil' Kim or Foxy Brown was entering into.
The space has changed.
♪ What's two plus two? ♪
♪ Four, three, two, oh ♪
Artists are also re-defining
what masculinity in hip-hop can look like.
Young Thug is wearing dresses,
and is unabashed about those dresses.
[Romero] Pharrell takes a Celine pink coat,
traditionally considered women's.
We're slowly eliminating societal norms
of what's male and what's female fashion,
what's hip-hop and what's designer.
Now we've blurred the lines enough that, quite frankly, anything goes.
[Morgan] Being non-binary, not being locked into labels,
that opens up spaces for everybody,
because, you know, like Black feminists say,
"We get free, everybody's getting free."
[Walker] It's great that the big corporations
see the power of who we are in our brilliance.
[Smith] There's so much more of a rainbow of Black models now.
But I don't know that we're profiting off of the consumption.
And I don't know if we're profiting off the creation.
And that's something that disturbs me.
Diversity is not about showing more Black people,
it's about diversity of perspective.
The next frontier in representation is about who is making the decision?
We've seen some brands fall foul in their campaigns.
We need people saying,
"You know what, that's racism, we can't do that."
I'm happy that we're at a point now where we no longer tolerate that shit.
[Walker] If you look at Fashion Week designers,
there's very few people of color,
period, that participate in Fashion Week.
That has to change.
We need more Black designers, more Latinos,
more Asians, more Indians, more women participating.
You know, all of our eyes are peeled open
to now a combination of the times,
the awareness, the #MeToo movement,
making sure that women get opportunities,
making sure that women are paid equally,
and making sure that their contributions are properly credited.
I'm actively looking for female designers.
I'm actively looking for Black designers.
I want to bring them into everything that I do.
After the infamous "Black Lives Matter" collection,
luckily I ended up signing the deal with Reebok,
and was able to keep us afloat.
It's important for me that this company remains Black-owned,
and family-owned for as long as humanly possible.
Yeah.
We're not just rewriting the narrative on the runway,
this stuff that's happening behind the scenes
is important to the fabric of society, too.
[choir vocalizing]
[Jean-Raymond] It's important that we honor the struggles
of people that came before me,
and so the designers who I looked up to,
Karl Kani, Cross Colours,
FUBU, will be in my collection.
My job as someone of relevance now
is to reinclude them back in the conversation.
I'm bringing them on this train with me,
making sure that they get their just due.
♪ Ah... Get out the way Get out the way ♪
♪ Get out the way, get out the way Yeah ♪
♪ Get out the way Get the fuck up out my way ♪
♪ Yeah ♪
♪ You're either with me or against me ♪
♪ Yeah ♪
♪ You're either with me or against me ♪
♪ When, when, when, when? ♪
♪ Fuck everything, yo ♪
♪ When, when, when, when? ♪
♪ Y'all know that shit ♪
♪ When, when, when, when? ♪
♪ Y'all know that shit ♪
♪ When, when, when, when? ♪
-♪ Yeah ♪ -♪ When? ♪
[Jean-Raymond] I get a kick out of, like, proving my supporters right.
The infamous "Black Lives Matter" collection
was, um, requested to be archived by the Smithsonian.
So I introduce myself as an artist now.
[laughs]
[whirring]
Big Daddy Kane was always known for the ill trenches,
and he actually had a black MCM trench,
by Dapper Dan.
You know I had made that Big Daddy Kane motorcycle trench,
by paying homage to what Dapper Dan did back in the day.
It looked amazing, Big Daddy Kane loved it,
so I posted a picture on my Instagram,
and then Zerina Akers had seen the picture,
and Zerina called me.
And she was like, "Oh, my God, I need one right away for my client."
And I was like, "Okay, you got it, let's get it done."
And then it turned into "I need a full MCM suit."
When I think of MCM,
I think of classic hip-hop to the core.
I'm thinking, you know, a bustier,
and then to go with it I want to do, like, a high-waisted pantie.
It makes it hip-hop,
feminine, sexy, and gangster at the same time.
I want to incorporate this yellow
with this cognac color.
That piping will sort of peek out, like this.
There's one thing that I know I'm good at,
and that's taking something
that could be perceived as masculine,
hip-hop, and making it very feminine,
and that's why I wanted to do the bustier.
Now I know who the client is,
but I still don't know what I'm doing it for,
I just know that they need it ASAP.
["Apeshit" playing]
Who would've ever imagined the "Apeshit" video?
♪ Stack my money fast and go ♪
The way that she's dressed, that MCM bodysuit moment
is really a moment.
Like, she just gets these Botticelli curves
draped in this very hard kind of leather.
Just is a completely different imagining,
saying, "I feel good as a woman in my body,
and I want you to feel good as a woman in your body, too."
When Black folks are taking over... [laughs] something
that is so traditionally
super European,
a place where our art doesn't even exist,
is so revolutionary.
It's saying, "This is ours."
Oh, my God.
This is nuts.
My work is in Times Square, this is crazy.
There, there, there.
Yes.
I see my legacy everywhere.
I see it on the runways,
I see it on the streets,
I see it in the magazines.
I see it everywhere. Wow.
And that speaks to how powerful what I created is.
Thank you, God.
Whoo!
[imperceptible]
♪ Ooh ♪
♪ I see how you You're running out of fuel ♪
♪ Actin' like a fool, yeah ♪
♪ I see how you ♪
♪ Playin' those games Sad to say it's Monday ♪
♪ I see how you ♪
♪ You're actin' out of character ♪
♪ Bet your mama's sittin' embarrassed Dawg ♪
♪ You're revealing you ♪
[car screeching]
♪ Kill another, steal from your brother ♪
♪ Did you really just disobey Your mother? ♪
♪ Live like a north one, rebellion Terror in a million ♪
♪ Fare no one plus have guns to spare ♪
♪ But no love to share to be powerful ♪
♪ Or to feel high as though The mindless handful ♪
♪ The people want to run, run from I hunt, hunt one ♪
♪ Mr. "Like me a honey That's quick to supply the proof ♪
♪ Shit at telling lies" 'Cause truth loves the higher me ♪
♪ Quick I write Thoughts about me in the Far East ♪
♪ Not to say that East play their grief ♪
♪ Tell me why, why do you Spend time lying on my name? ♪
♪ The higher power will reign Proclaim my slay ♪
♪ You choose to be an armful As alarms build ♪
♪ Your thoughts should surrender effortlessly ♪
♪ Can we just please get away from all this inhumane ♪
♪ Better yet, blatant destruction Corruption? ♪
♪ Plenty weep and suffer Some just lost a, lost a ♪
♪ I only love another ♪
♪ I lift you up Like them early prayers from your mother ♪
♪ Before you felt like you knew the way ♪
♪ Those days when guidance was Still okay ♪
♪ Believe me when I say, say, say ♪
♪ I'm seeing a huge lack of faith ♪
♪ I see how you You're running out of fuel ♪
♪ Actin' like a fool, yeah ♪
♪ I see how you ♪
♪ Playin' those games Sad to say it's Monday ♪
♪ I see how you ♪
♪ You're actin' out of character ♪
♪ Bet your mama's sittin' embarrassed Dawg ♪
♪ You're revealing you ♪
♪ You know them ones Don't act like you don't know ♪
♪ You know yourselves Stop punchin' below your belt ♪
♪ You owe yourselves So come live in good health ♪
♪ I stopped wasting time 'Cause it's better for the Commonwealth ♪
♪ But also for my pocket ♪
♪ You see me slimmin' down But still packin' in my rag ♪
♪ Bet you wanna catch a look ♪
[tires screeching]
♪ And now I've got to slow it down ♪
♪ Keep up with my diary Many make inquiries ♪
♪ About this hot popper You better understand
♪ 'Cause in my life there's no highest Bidder other than I ♪
♪ No gettin' rid of me, I ♪
♪ No outbids or cheats For the mic, he pushes for victory ♪
♪ Literally, are you gonna tell me how? ♪
♪ How could someone try To poke my style? ♪
♪ That's the best of me, won't Choke on my energy, the remedy, no ♪
♪ Also let me know Who can tamper with this heat ♪
♪ Just assume your curiosity It's impossible to level with me ♪
♪ At this degree Uh, and before you get her to one ♪
♪ Maybe tell them how you had an affair ♪
♪ This is not a scandal This is not your everyday maneuver ♪
♪ Soul soother is I Come and get with a new one ♪
♪ L has break some bread With the real dah ♪
♪ Some bread with the real dah ♪
♪ You better come correct now ♪
-♪ Now tell me what you're sayin' ♪ -♪ Prayin' ♪
♪ And things are looking up now ♪
♪ Foundations start layin' ♪
♪ So you better come correct now ♪
♪ Have you started showin' respect now? ♪
♪ I'll walk with you through it anyway ♪
♪ So live and find your destiny ♪
♪ Destinies ♪
♪ It's your destiny ♪
♪ Have you heard? Right here ♪
-♪ Up now, make it count ♪ -♪ Playin' ♪
♪ Now ♪
♪ Anyway ♪
♪ Destiny ♪