The hip-hop generation has arrived in luxury fashion.

Here, haute street wear’s next generation

of innovators and inspirations.

By

Sept. 11, 2019

The speed with which hip-hop and high fashion have become enamored of each other is staggering. Increasingly, it is impossible to speak about one without invoking the other.

From one direction, rappers like ASAP Rocky, Lil Uzi Vert, Tyler, the Creator and more have become style luminaries, fearless adopters of forward-looking self-presentation. At the same time, the shapes of high-end men’s wear have been morphing, taking in silhouettes borrowed from street wear and the hip-hop style of the 1990s.

This union is the end result of decades of flirtation between the two worlds, dating back to Dapper Dan’s luxury bootlegs, with stops at the jiggy era of the mid-to-late 1990s and the Japanese street wear influence of the late 2000s. All those moments set the table for what now seems inevitable: Hip-hop is dictating the tone of men’s fashion at the highest levels.

The current family tree in many ways begins with Kanye West, who long agitated for embrace by the luxury fashion world before creating his own Yeezy clothing line and teaming with Adidas on ravenously received sneakers.