Upon his return, he created beautiful designs that were beaded, feathered, and tribal-ed out. In 1967, Yves Saint Laurent debuted his “African and Safari Collection,” drawing inspiration from a trip to the motherland. We’ve seen it time and again, on differing levels of culture vulturism. It’s robbery for these high fashion companies and larger companies to take inspiration from smaller brands and companies that don’t have the financial backing and platform to compete at the same level. RELATED: When Cultural Theft Is Mislabeled As Cultural Appropriation

Inspiration, lauded in social media posts, isn’t enough – if you’re going to take from us, you need to help us build wealth too. At the very least, they could have invited the fashion icon to attend the show front row. The New York Times reported that Dapper Dan is in talks to collaborate with Gucci, but ashamedly only after this mishap. If they had truly seen him as inspiration, one would think they would have incorporated him into the show, or paid him for creative direction. One has to wonder, would they have considered this if they hadn’t gotten caught on their fraudulent behavior? Furthermore, it’s hard to believe that the fashion house was thinking of anything other than poaching his work. At their Gucci Cruise 2018 collection, the fashion house released a puff sleeve jacket that had most of the fashion industry applauding its innovation and seeming freshness.īut the jacket was actually a near complete copy of Harlem fashion icon, Dapper Dan, a fact pointed out by fashion insiders familiar with his incredible body of innovative work. The Gucci puff jacket was a piece that Dapper Dan created in 1989, utilizing Louis Vuitton logo.Īnd, like so many true artists who threaten the status quo, Dapper Dan’s Harlem boutique was SUED out of business by high fashion designer labels, who were upset with his personalization of their designs. “It’s time you really investigate what these people are doing on behalf of your company…Gucci gets two thumbs down for lack of diversity.”Īnd yet, there was more. This decision to be “inspired” by Black culture came shortly after Gucci was publicly scolded by James Scully, a major casting director in the fashion industry, who told Business Of Fashion in an exclusive report, The exhibit featured the work of Malick Sidibé, focusing on Black masculinity and dandyism. Alessandro Michele, the current Creative Director at Gucci, stated in a press release, that the collection was inspired by an exhibit entitled, ‘ Made You Look,’ at the Photographer’s Gallery in London.

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