Hip Hop

80s


Hip Hop emerged in the ghettos of the Bronx, New York in the 1970s, where block parties became common among African-American youth and was accompanied by rap music, break-dancing and graffiti artists.Although rap music was originally more a part of the social culture than anything overtly political, its values, narratives and structure were often directly opposing the logic of dominant white middle-class western culture.Though the movement started out in the African-American comunities, Hip-Hop music,culture and fashion has crossed social and ethnic barriers and has spread to all other parts of the world.

Prominent elements of hip hop street wear are sportswear, oversized –extra large garments such as baggy sagging jeans, T-shirts and bomber jackets, heavy gold jewelry, baseball caps and bandanas,and also gangsta style clothes.

80s was in the heights of the portable stereo craze.Boomboxes or Ghetto Blasters were held on the shoulder or positioned on a street corner for an impromptu breakdancing. Nas for 'Hip Hop Is Dead'album cover released Dec 19, 2006.


Breakdancer with the boombox.Photo by Nicolas Ferrando.2004



























Bandanas or do-rags have become a fad of the hip hop generation.Graffiti of murdered rap star Tupac Shakur with bandana tied around his head.Lisbon 2007.



Elite members of the hip hop community looked back to the gangsters of the 1930s and 1940s for inspiration.Mafioso influences, especially and primarily inspired by the 1983 remake version of Scarface, became popular in hip hop.Coolio and Snoop-Doggy-Dogg,'The Return of the Gangsta'.Photo by Alessio Pizzicannella 2006.









Heavy Hip hop jewelry is one big fashion statement.Rapper Yung Joc wears diamond jewelry at the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards.Photo: Ethan Miller,Sep 09, 2007.



Hip hop influences in Chanel's Fall 1991 collection and again in Fall 2009.






































John Galliano's Spring 2001.






DSquared2 Spring/Summer 2009 Menswear Hip-Hop style.