a group swimming in the river, the harbor had a dark. you had to know which way the current was so you could walk out of there. we used to take a popsicle and throw it in the river to see which way the current was going. fashion is such that you have to pay attention to the current, it s always moving. i can t control that river. just see which way the current is going and then you dive in. when you talk about fashion, you have to talk about hip-hop. the style of hip-hop has always been more progressive and cooler than anything else in the industry. hip-hop is a culture, it s about music, it s about fashion, it s about art, it s about entertainment. it s colorful, it s exciting, and it s telling a story. it s fabulous. it s ghetto fabulous. if he was going to determine the future. look what we have today. growing up in new york city in the early 70s and 80s was a very exciting time. it was electric. it was powerful. it was totally graffiti on the tra
Things fashion wide, been there since day one. and it s great times. i agree. i think that would not have imagined this. we were really starting from this self expressive mode. now to see this multi billion dollar industry that s been created on the culture of hip-hop, that cultural currency is priceless. to turn tables and microphone, here in new york city is born. you pass the decades, so much, have you filed a change? what do you think about the next 50 years? where do you imagine the music in the fashion? the style, of the new york, the worldwide, right now the number one street brand internationally, 25 foreign countries. ten stories in japan. this thing is bigger than just the united states. i see this growing bigger and bigger, the opportunities are still out there for us to go
Viral then. hip-hop is building. everyone s taking notice to hip-hop fashion in this culture. right? young white kids are, like embracing our music more and more and more. as a young lawyer could embracing the music, has it created a crossover effect in fashion. whatever rappers we re wearing, that s what they wanted to wear. department stores have had an interesting relationship with three. whereas the beginning, they were hesitant to participate in anything involved in the street. we have a larger hill to climb, because we are interpreted as definitely not fashion. we re looked at as a trend. when i initially went to a lot of the bigger stores, those big department stores, i got resistance, such as take the hang tag off. i was like why, weathers for african americans on there. we don t want those type of people in our store. or we don t feel like dealing with a lot of shoplifting or shoot outs in the store.
The rest of us. you re not ready, can i tell you, can i just tell you? let the drip begin. hip-hop fashion is endless. hipaa fashion has become almost 11 glitch unto itself. i think it says what it has said from the beginning. we don t need your cosign, we don t need your permission to look a certain way, or be a certain way. we are going to be ourselves, we are going to use fashion, and what we look like to communicate that. aren t hip-hop fashion has had many names, from urban fashion to help a fascist, history where. it s fashion, it s a force to be reckoned with. we created all of the best of the best, your favorites favorites. we did that.
We were grossing about 300 and $50 million. in the late 90s, you still had the fubu, carl can, is april walker, really driving the culture. then also, the mainstream brand stepping in, baby fat, these kind of brands that would set the tone for this great explosion and hip-hop fashion. i met my first husband when i was very young. she had a line called fat farm. she wanted to get more into fashion, we started to discuss a women s line they would be like a counterpart to fat farm. what was sexy was the girls wearing the boyfriends varsity jacket. i thought that women and their