When I know that they intentionally did that, then I will say something, or when the information is so important that you can’t just not say it.”ĭuring the height of his success in the ‘80s, Day felt blacklisted by mainstream media outlets like Jet or Ebony magazine, and being ignored by middle class black clients. “Those who purposefully lied to deceive us and to block our vertical growth need to be called out. “Some needed it, and some don’t,” he admits, matter-of-fact. Still, Day maintains that he never felt anxious about name-dropping anyone unfavorably in the book. When writing his memoir, he introduces a handful of celebrities who became instrumental to his success, and some who were just around but didn’t really do much to help. As rap evolved to become more braggadocious, some of Day’s designs became flashier, too. Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Fendi, MCM-Day took the logos of these European luxury labels and screen printed them onto ensembles worn by rappers like LL Cool J and boxers like Mike Tyson. It wasn’t there, so I did it, and took it to a higher level.” What we’ve always done to music,” he says. “I did to fashion what hip hop did to music. ![]() ![]() ![]() Day’s rise to prominence goes hand in hand with the rise of hip hop culture. I’d been carrying one for years.” He sold to drug dealers, and later to rappers. He started with a leather Gucci garment bag, taking the double G pattern and turning those garment bags into wearable goods, like custom jackets for his clients. I’m a guy who took advantage of being born outside of the box.” “I’m not a guy who figured out how to do things outside of the box. “I never go back to an old hustle,” he says. “I know that I had to have a high sense of spirituality to be all I needed to be, you know?”īefore he got into the fashion game, he was a gambler and a hustler, but he has always evolved. When he opened his storefront in the early 1980s, he began selling furs and leather, often to clients whose pockets were filled with money from the crack epidemic. There are many reasons to call Day a legend, but perhaps the first would be for kickstarting the logomania trend that has since been revived on the runway and on the street. The biggest thing that I’ve done so far is to revolutionize the concept of what a person in fashion should look like.” I’m a straight, black guy from the sidewalk. “Want me to tell you something I never told nobody?” Day asks. “That’s Dapper Dan! The guy with all of the Gucci stuff!” Inside, he leans over a table to keep talking, while a handful of people can be overheard whispering to each other about the legend in their presence. At the suggestion of ducking into Shake Shack for a refreshment, Day becomes excited. A simple trip to Sylvia’s, an iconic restaurant located around the corner from the Dapper Dan of Harlem boutique, could take an hour to get to because of all of the hands to shake and hugs to give along the way. He embraces the attention, and his dedication to the community does not go unnoticed. We keep it moving, and immediately, at least three separate times, we are stopped by fans. ![]() People you would never imagine, I could have got this building for $65,000 but the crack dealers who owned it wouldn’t move out.” I used to sit out in front of my store and watch some of the most beautiful people you could imagine going up into here, the crack spot, before they would go to work,” Day says. “Did you know that Madonna performed there when she started out? And Bobby Brown and New Edition when they started out? And that Dapper Dan performed there when he started out?” He laughs.Īs we pass the original Dapper Dan boutique that opened in 1982, we stop at a totally nondescript door on 125th. And beneath that was the famous club, The Celebrity Club In Harlem,” he reveals. He sold it to the guy that I rented from. “The building I was in originally was owned by Babatunde Olatunji, a black African drummer. I’m walking through it and living it and not realizing it,” Day says. “I saw the jazz age, the Afro-Latino age, the Calypso age, the musical genres that kept developing.
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