“You’ll never find photos of hip-hop stars wearing thrift clothing.” “That’s a major difference between hip-hop and rock’n’roll,” says Jenkins. Damon Dash, who set up Rocawear with Jay Z, talks in the film about how “if you go home and you got roaches and 10 people living in an apartment, the only way you can … feel some kind of status is what you have on your body.” This may link back to the origins of “fresh” – the hip-hop look is about being pristine, never grimy. Jenkins points out that in the early hip-hop scene, clothes were a way to transcend the poverty that surrounded most of those involved. And baggy jeans have connections with prison.” If you think of the hoody, that goes back to early graffiti artists who used the baggy shape to hide their probably stolen spraypaint, and the hood to hide from the police. “They were a reflection of urban life to some extent. “All of these clothes are connected to what it means to be young and black in America,” says Erik Nielson, co-author of The Hip Hop & Obama Reader. While style takeaways from Fresh Dressed are numerous (see the rediscovery of late-80s label Cross Colours), Jenkins’s film is really about the racial politics of hip-hop style. ![]() Run DMC in their signature hats and gold chains. Nas calls him “ Tom Ford before Tom Ford”. Highlights include the story of Tupac Shakur modelling for free as a gesture of support for black designer Karl Kani, and that of Dapper Dan, the cult designer who kitted out those on the 80s scene with tracksuits made from counterfeit Gucci- and Louis Vuitton-monogrammed fabric before these brands began to take legal action. Talking heads range from Kanye himself, Damon Dash, Givenchy creative director Riccardo Tisci and American Vogue’s André Leon Talley. Starting with Run DMC – the group’s fat laces, Cazal glasses, gold chains and Kangol hats – and running up to current fashion killas Kanye West and A$AP Rocky, it’s a crash course in an alliance of style, culture and music. This connection is the subject of a new documentary, Fresh Dressed, directed by Sacha Jenkins and out this week. Flashy … fashion sense that people ain’t never seen before.” The general gist emerges: to be fresh is to be stylish, and style has always been key to hip-hop. Across 14 pages, definitions include “Young. To get an idea of how entrenched the word “fresh” is to hip-hop, look to the Urban Dictionary.
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