![]() ![]() “These styles don’t reflect what’s on the street anymore.” If history proved anything, once the powers that be sucked up counterculture and regurgitated it to the masses, it immediately lost any semblance of cool.As the sun set over the Seine in Paris last night, Pharrell Williams debuted his vision for Louis Vuitton. “The designers are way off the mark,” said Fab 5 Freddy, host of “Yo! MTV Raps,” in 1991. There was understandable hesitancy from hip-hop and Black fashion critics on whether the trend was celebratory or parasitic. “We take these styles, refine them, give the customers as much a dose as they can deal with and bring a little funk into their lives.” “We had to look to the Black cultures to give us some clues about style,” said Mizrahi. Culture was a holistic concept and parsing it into its “cool” elements without regard for the Black and brown people that made it was all too convenient. ![]() “Every era and every time has something of an undercurrent of some ethnic culture that influences it and gives it movement and currency,” Mizrahi said at the time. It’s unclear whether Mizrahi and the like appreciated hip-hop or saw it as a grab for cache and cash. “The most stylish people are the homegirls and homeboys,” said American designer Isaac Mizrahi in an interview with Women’s Wear Daily. Donna Karan, who launched her more affordable, youth-centric DKNY line in 1989, showed gold bodysuits and zippered accents. WWD/Penske Media/Getty Imagesīrits Katharine Hamnett and Rifat Ozbek showed collections with sneakers and tracksuits à la LL Cool J, oversized hoodies, and Afro-centric prints similar to those worn at the time by Queen Latifah or A Tribe Called Quest. Silhouettes traditionally associated with Chanel’s aristocratic lineage, like the iconic tweed jacket and chiffon dresses, were updated and offset by hip-hop-inspired bling - chains, medallions, earrings, and bracelets - piled high atop each other.ĭesigner Isaac Mizrahi pictured with Arthur Hubbert, his doorman and apparent inspiration for his Fall-Winter 1991 collection. Jeans added a youthful edge, while risqué catsuits and nipple covers, made from the House’s Camellia roses, kept things a little bit naughty. There were leather baseball caps worn backward, jackets with “Chanel” scripted across the back in pearls, distressed and ripped denim, and quilted jackets that would be as at home on 125th Street in Harlem as on the Champs-Élysées. ![]() Streetwear, kitsch, and glitz collided in a smorgasbord of delicious excess on the runway. Her famous physique was draped in a royal-blue jacket, but it was the extravagant accessories that took center stage: a cascade of gold chains adorned her neck, including a large nameplate emblazoned with the word “CHANEL.” Supermodel Linda Evangelista wore a gold baseball cap, tilted to the back with attitude. Chanel’s 1991 Fall-Winter ready-to-wear show was set in Paris, but its soul was right off the streets of New York City.Ī remix of Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’” blared overhead as one thousand or so spectators, like “Rocky” actors Sylvester Stallone and Dolph Lundgren, gazed at leggy models in bold and provocative silhouettes: Karen Mulder in a black leather trench, her waist circled by layers of gold rope chains that created a shimmying hula skirt, Helena Christensen in a see-through black mesh bodysuit, her décolletage perfectly accented by long Cuban links. ![]()
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