The origins of Hip Hop Street Fashion can be traced back to the late 70s and early 80s at the beginning of the musical movement. “B-Boys” and “Flyboys” challenged each other in dance battles at block parties and DJ events. They quickly established the need to identify themselves to each other by their outfits. Whenever break dancer crews battled against each other, you could expect to see them in matching Puma or Adidas tracksuits and sneakers! Their style evolved from matching T shirts, to track suits to nylon or leather jackets.
As the 80s rolled into the early 90s, the B Boy crews would add to their distinctive looks with the Kangol hats, Levi jeans, Nike high tops and Gazelle shades.
As Rap Music expanded into all corners of the globe and also expanded into sub genres, the fashions being seen on the streets of the major cities in the world also began to reflect the chosen flavor of music a person identified with. If you were a De La Soul fan, you began to dress as a Daisy Ager, sporting Afrocentric patterns, pendants headgear. If you were a fan of the hard core gangsta rap genre, your dress depended on what coast you lived on: If you were on the east coast, you preferred the baggy jeans, bubble jackets, fitted ball caps and Tim boots. You lived on the west coast, you ran with more gang affiliated attire which included colored t shirts, do rags, baggy jeans and sneakers.
Another sub genre: Jamacian Rude Bwoys fashion which was a fusion of Afro American and Caribbean influences.
Throughout the entire time period that Hip Hop Fashion was making its mark, fans of the music began to create their own fashions to reflect their identities or they assimilated non Hip Hop fashion lines like Tommy Hilfiger (one of the first brands to be widely accepted into the fold of the inner city identity) No other fashion item personified urban assimilation more than footwear. In the 70s and 80s, every type of sneaker company benefited from being associated with the urban fashion experience; from Nike to Puma to British Knights and especially Adidas whose direct connection with the rap group RUN DMC saw their global sales skyrocket from just one song (My Adidas; released in 1986 and the third song from their Raising Hell album)
"It was a song that was about our sneakers, but it was bigger than just talking about how many pairs of sneakers we had," DMC told MTV News. "It came from the place of people would look at the b-boys, the b-girls and go, 'Oh, those are the people that cause all the problems in here.' And, 'Those young people are nothing but troublemakers and those young people don't know nothing.' So they was judging the book by its cover, without seeing what was inside of it."
by George Lopez
