In the early 1990s, Dapper Dan’s atelier was raided after complaints from major designers like Gucci and Fendi after more than a decade of using their iconography in his work, seeking to dress Black artists in the brands that wouldn’t associate with them. Although he is now recognized for his legendary contributions to hip-hop fashion, he became a pariah in the 90’s, going underground and designing quietly and privately.

We had no assets of the raids themselves, no articles, no photos, nothing. Needing to build out the emotion of the loss he experiences, I instead built a scene of him in his current atelier (ironically built for him by Gucci), utilizing moments that show his introspection, attention to detail, and wistful sadness.

In the 2000’s, what had been a niche market of Hip-Hop designers burst onto the mainstream scene and retailers were quick to take advantage of its popularity. Like many things in a capitalist market, there was an oversaturation of styles and brands which led to declines in sales and appropriation by large luxury designers.

This is a plot-point that’s almost solely about numbers, but we didn’t want to utilize graphs showing red arrows heading southwards. We wanted to capture the explosion, the chaos, and then the sudden drop as the designers felt they had lost control over the movement they had fought so hard to create. So we went a bit abstract, using 2000’s commercials and music videos to show the mayhem and some verité footage of shoppers in SoHo and on 5th Avenue quite literally “stepping back” from the brands.