Dapper Dan Brand News Today

Because you grow up in a world where fashion is so important. a lot of people in hip hop have aspirations and aspiration is can you go in to the store and buy that brand? >> when you think of versace, ralph lauren, it seems like its far away. its a dream. somewhere where you would like to go. those people could care less about you. but, it seems like if i can grab that and wear that, im living a fantasy. ♪ ♪ >> low lives originated in brownsville and st. john in crown heights, two crews gett...

>> being in new york with so many people walking past each other on the street every day, you get a chance -- its like a runway, you know what i sneen all the streets were like runways for different clothing brands. >> there was always all sorts of different flavors in the hood. there wasnt one definitive sort of style. >> guy from brooklyn would have on shark skins, glasses with no lens in it and a crease like i dont know what. that was a brooklyn cat. he didnt have to say anything. you knew he...

And cross colors was in a fashion show and i saw karl jones and asked him how to get in to department stores and i want to get my brand out there and he said come to my office tomorrow and i will be willing to talk to you. i went to his office and he said i saw your stuff and i would be willing to help you out. he invited me to become partners with him in the business two weeks later. >> he was very selective in who he gave his clothes to. he gave it to tupacs, more sophisticated guys. cross col...

We wrote $300,000 worth of orders out of this hotel room. we get turned down by 27 banks. we go to my house and get my furniture and sell what we can. the rest we cannot sell we burn oil drums. it takes two weeks because we want to get it out of there and we move industrial sewing machines in there and hire a staff. we slept in sleeping bags next to the machines and for a year we would crank it out of the house. that started to populate the stores and stores started to sell fleece and sweatshirt...

Run to the gate. aaron b, rock kim, big daddy cane, salt n pepa, teddy raleigh. im not mad at you. i still have a check for $700 that bounced. ♪ [ sirens ] >> lets put the nail in the coffin, first they raided me broke. part two was crank out anything i do on your mtv and mtv gave birth to the rap game. that was their coverage. >> should have come up with the dapper dan brand. he definite ly could have. >> dapper dan was tom ford. before tom ford, he should have been hired instead of shut down...

But without hip hop there was no light in the hood to see what you got on. you know, nobody was like what these folks in the hood. nobody cared about that. they only cared about that when it was in and that birthed the street wear culture. >> the first time we started seeing that urban really had some dollars behind it was through cross colors. here was a brand that was actually started in california by a black fashion executive who actually came out of the surf business, who realized that there...

You know for sure it had impacted. evens pa everybodys pants were with big. >> i was a freshman in college when it peaked and the idea there was clothing that united young people and races it was intriguing for me. the idea of clothes that made you proud of your ethnicity. here was a time when women were really wearing those same oversized clothes, just as much as the men were. i think of tlc before i think of anyone wearing cross colors and being an influence in wearing a mens brand. >> no one ...

Going to do urban fashion, but im not going to do urban i em going to do high urban fashion. >> shawn was about aspiration. he did this high-low thing. at such a big level and turned it into this global brand. le also won the cod award for mens wear. >> winning that award was wigger than sean john. it was bigger than me. when we won that award, as i said, we won that award. we all won it together.

Shoes. >> this is what i like to call sneaker heaven. i could wear a brand new pair of sneakers every day for 7 1/2 years. thats a fact. when i was a kid i asked my mother for a pair of sneakers one day. she bought me a mark 5. nobody alive knows what this shoe is. i thought i was the hottest guy in the world because my name was on the shoe. my name is mark. i went on the block and they laughed me off the block because it was a $10 shoe and i got destroyed. getting fresh starts with your feet fi...