01x05 - Hip-Hop Takes Fashion

[bunniefuu]

[Blige] What's up, y'all?

Everybody swing your hand

from side to side and sing this song.

Mary J. Blige is the first female artist

that I styled.

When we met, we automatically got

each other, we understood each other.

We loved the same fashion.

We love hip-hop. We love style.

So, at this time, the early '90s,

we're making money.

We're able to shop and able to buy things

that are more expensive and more luxury.

[man] Marker.

I've been in a lot of stores with Mis.

We were shopping so much

because we never had a lot.

And once we were able to shop and get

the things that we wanted growing up,

we was blowing our credit cards

to smithereens.

So, we went to a boutique.

We were shopping,

and when it was time to pay,

the sales associate keeps telling us

the card's declining.

Try it again. The card's declining.

The card's declining.

We called the credit card company.

The card's not declining.

It's actually not even being rung.

Like, "Okay, you don't want us

to buy these items."

It was because we were young

and we were Black

and they could not figure out

how we were spending this much money.

They didn't even realise

who Mary J. Blige was yet.

And so, you see how luxury fashion brands

didn't really value us

or respect us

and they didn't see their brands on us.

[Blige] They was rejecting us.

They were treating us

like little street kids.

You know. But they didn't wanna

They probably didn't want

to take our business.

They weren't treating us the way

they treat us now.

Absolutely not. [chuckles]

[thunder rumbles]

[Enninful] The '90s was the decade

when hip-hop and high fashion

found each other and fell in love.

But it wasn't always like that.

The thing is, there was an element

of racism at the time.

Back then, Vogue was here,

the Black community is here

and the hip-hop world and high fashion

were worlds apart.

In the early '90s,

the American world of fashion

was very much focused

on the sense of aspiration,

to a country club or, you know,

a beautiful house in the Hamptons.

It was the American dream.

But that dream

was almost exclusively a white one.

[Hylton] Vogue had been focused

on mainstream fashion

and celebrities and artists

who were not Black.

And they definitely were not Black

and representing hip-hop culture

and Black fashion, for sure.

They didn't understand

what was going on, you know.

"What is this rap thing?" And, you know,

"What is this hip-hop beat bop thing?"

They never wanted to touch us.

They never wanted to.

And they didn't want us on their covers.

Anything like that.

[Enninful] At the time, the closest

Black people get to high fashion

was this incredible man

who was in Harlem,

but giving you everything

that, in your dream, you'll see in Paris.

[Hylton] My introduction

to those high-end luxury brands

and it being cool was Dapper Dan.

Seeing what he did and how he flipped it

in a way that spoke to my community.

[Dapper Dan] Fashion made me

somebody important

in the streets of Harlem.

Even though I came from the poorest

section of the poorest neighbourhood,

when you put on some clothes

and you go somewhere,

nobody know where you came from.

All the people

in the underworld of Harlem,

they like the way I dressed.

So, I say, "You know what? I'll open up

a boutique and cater to those people."

Those are the p*mps and the gangsters.

Those were my clientele

because those are the only ones

who could afford the type of luxury things

that I was selling and making.

One day, the number one gangster

who took over the Harlem drug chain,

came into the store

and he had a Louis Vuitton pouch

with the LVs and variation

of the Eastern cross and all of that.

Everybody gets excited about that pouch.

And I say, "Imagine if I could have them

walking around, looking like the luggage."

That would enable me to make more

than I was making off crocodile,

alligators, furs and everything.

So, I went and took them symbols.

Started creating garments for the rappers.

Louis Vuitton.

Gucci, Fendi

It was those symbols

that I embraced in the beginning

and start figuring out a way

to put that on leather

and to put it on cloth

and to do those kind of things with it.

All of the guys in our neighbourhood

wore Dapper Dan prints back in the days.

And if you had a custom jacket

from Dapper Dan,

you were somebody.

Especially in the '80s, I feel like

everybody was rocking a Dapper outfit.

[Goodman] He knew what

the culture was doing.

He knew what the culture wanted.

And you could not look at anything

that did not have a logo plastered

all over it.

Not discreetly, but all over it.

[Enninful] Dapper Dan was revolutionary

because you have to remember,

when he was making clothes

with all the logos,

LV weren't making clothes,

Gucci was more known for accessories.

Fendi was practically non-existent

in the public consciousness.

So, he was taking all these iconic logos

and making something new.

[Dapper Dan] All those brands

that I was replicating in my own way,

what I called

blackonising those brands.

To some people, they saw it as,

"Oh, he's just copying somebody."

The other people say,

"Wow, look how you can transform

"elements from some other culture

into your culture, you know,

"and make it look so different."

I created them in a way

to bring the jazz out of them.

To give you an example.

Ralph Lauren gave you one horse.

I gave you a whole herd.

That's what this is about.

Just going crazy with colours and cuts.

[Campbell] I met Dapper Dan

through Mike Tyson

and just seeing how many people

were wearing his things,

it was a phenomenon.

And it touched everybody.

Anything that they wore turned to gold.

People wanted it.

[Dapper Dan] Dapper Dan was global.

Not only do the public know,

but Louis know, Gucci knows, Fendi knows.

So, the brands started raiding me.

Police raided Dapper Dan's,

the all-night clothing store in Harlem.

Cops seized 300 bags as well as equipment

allegedly used to make phoney labels.

[Enninful] Unfortunately,

they had to shut him down.

That's an example to an industry,

that you can't just pick up our logos

and that will be okay.

Taking that logo was like stealing

the crown jewel, you know. It was major.

They probably felt like, you know,

"Wait, you're taking money from us

and this is our brand."

Because they weren't going in the store.

They were getting it from Dapper.

They confiscated everything I had.

All my machines. All the fabrics.

Yes, I was bitter.

If you want to say, "Well,

you were making our brands look bad,"

I say this with perfect clarity.

"I didn't knock you all off.

I knocked you all up."

[Daymond John] Growing up

in Queens at that time,

I was starting to hear these rumours

that people didn't really like us

as a community

who was taking their clothes

and reinterpreting it for the streets.

So I said to myself,

"I'm going to come up with a name.

"I'm going to come up with a name

that's going to respect us."

And it's called FUBU, For Us, By Us.

And that was the day it started.

It's For Us, By Us.

We want you to wear it because you like it

and we basically know what everybody likes

because we're the ones who wear it.

These other people

who make clothes for you,

they don't go to the clubs we go to.

They don't hang the places we hang.

They don't know how these clothes

are supposed to be worn.

It only becomes a trend after us,

the inner city kids, start wearing it.

It was nothing to do with Europe.

It was nothing to do

with American high fashion.

It was by Black people for Black people.

It was artists taking control

and knowing that they lived, breathed

and ate what they personified.

And that was amazing to witness.

[announcer] Please give it up

for Team FUBU.

The quintessential look of FUBU

was something a little larger,

a lot larger.

And quality.

And it would be bulletproof,

feeling like heavy.

And that was the look.

[Enninful] The clothes that he made

were really bodacious, really

not for the fainthearted.

But it really served

the hip-hop community,

and the logos were everywhere.

These are doing very well.

[Blige] Everybody was wearing FUBU.

All rappers.

All of us was wearing that stuff.

We needed that. For us, by us.

It was exactly what we needed.

Especially us women.

[Hylton] So, Mary J. Blige

was the R&B singer.

But her style's rooted in hip-hop culture,

hip-hop style and streetwear.

And so, when she comes on the scene,

she changes

what the female R&B singer looks like

with this hip-hop-influenced style.

It was like this tomboy look.

Which was really dope.

Yeah, I was definitely a tomboy.

I didn't look like everybody else.

I didn't sound like everybody else.

I didn't dress like everybody else.

Everybody that was out in that time,

Mariah, Whitney, Anita Baker.

You know, amazing singers.

They were all in gowns

and I just didn't want to wear a gown

and I didn't want to look like that.

That's just not who I was.

When you grow up as a female

in the inner cities, it is about survival

because you're constantly having to

move in a way

where you're protecting yourself.

And that's where a lot of the style

came from.

Women at the time, in the music place,

we were a minority,

and the only way

that we could really co-exist

was to show our strength.

You know, "sexy tomboy"

was what we coined it.

And it was just, again, us redefining

how we wanted to be portrayed.

My favourite colour's purple.

Some real razor blades.

The razor blades stand for cutting edge

and sharp mind. All right?

You have Mary J. Blige,

Lil' Kim and Missy Elliott.

Who would wear, like,

Puma, Adidas, oversized jackets,

door-knocker earrings,

baseball caps.

We used to wear big, baggy pants.

These shirts that were really oversized,

big, tuck them inside the pants.

You know, so we felt like fly.

They dressed baggy because they wanted

to go toe to toe with the guys

and really be respected for their lyrics

and their ability to rap

and to hold their own.

I never conformed to anything.

Musically or fashion.

Like, I've always just been true to me.

That's hot. Sorry, I'm all on your chain.

Come here, Ray. Show her that chain.

We making it happen.

[Blige] In the '90s,

especially the early '90s,

everyone was able to do

what they wanted to do

and everyone wanted to just be themselves,

everybody wanted to dress like themselves.

Everyone had an identity.

[Tommy Hilfiger]

I didn't know what hip-hop was.

I didn't know what rap music was.

But my brother Andy is a musician,

and he was out at clubs,

hanging out with musicians

And he introduced me to it.

Other brands weren't doing anything

with hip-hop.

They just That wasn't their thing.

[Tommy] When we started

the Tommy Hilfiger brand,

I wanted to go back to my preppy roots.

But I wanted to make the clothes cool.

Very, very, very classic. But then,

there's a little crank to that classic

that sort of takes it

out of a boring feeling.

I had been spending

a lot of time in California

and the lifestyle

was so relaxed and casual.

I took that and baked it

into preppie gear.

So I made everything oversized,

relaxed, colourful.

It was a trend that was waiting to happen

and I was in the right place

at the right time.

My brother Andy

introduced me to Peter Paul Scott

and Peter Paul was

one of the break-dancers on the streets.

But he also had a great fashion sense.

Tommy was already big

in the oxfords and the khakis.

But every time you saw me,

I was always in Tommy.

And they were like, "That's the Tommy guy

and he's making it look good."

So, Peter Paul has got a creative head

and a business head.

And he was really the conduit

to this culture.

So, we hired him.

[Scott] Everybody got a chance to go

through a design and give their opinion.

We would all throw

our little two cents in.

You know, "Tommy, man, you know,

big logos is the thing right now."

I put my name on the jerseys

in a very big, bold way.

[Scott] Big, bright, Americana,

in your face.

You show up, you know exactly who this is.

And that's what I liked about Tommy,

right off the jump. He welcomed it.

You know, he embraced it.

And March 1994,

that was the blast-off,

I would call it, in the Tommy world.

I knew who Snoop was

because of the Dr. Dre Chronic record.

Tommy and myself, we were

at the after-party for the Grammys.

We're all hanging out

in, like, this VIP area.

[photographers clamouring]

I said to Snoop, "Tommy Hilfiger."

He is like, "Yeah, I like Tommy Hilfiger.

I know about Tommy Hilfiger."

I said, 'Well, listen, give me a call

if you guys want to come to the showroom

"and get some clothes

before you go back to California."

The next day, there's a message.

"Hey, Andy, it's Snoop.

I want to come up."

An hour later, the whole Dogg Pound

showed up at 39th Street to our showroom.

We gave him a bunch of stuff.

And walking out the door, he said,

"I'm going to rock this

on Saturday Night Live."

Saturday comes along.

About quarter of 12:00, Tommy called.

[phone ringing]

Said, "Andy, turn on Saturday Night Live.

"Snoop is wearing our gear.

He's wearing my clothes."

[audience cheering]

I'm like, "Yeah, I forgot to tell you."

[Enninful] Saturday Night Live was

the biggest show at the time.

If you were on that show,

it was seen by millions of people.

And this moment was pivotal for Tommy.

When Snoop Dogg wore it

on Saturday Night Live,

all of these kids

leaned into what I was doing.

It was the beginning of a phenomenon,

I guess you could say.

[Scott] The whole company was like,

"We had a gazillion of those shirts

the other day.

"Why are we sold out of that shirt?"

And that was the power of influence

and television at the same time

with the right artist.

[reporter] From the runway to your way.

Any way you dress it up or down,

young people across the country

are wearing Tommy Hilfiger.

It's a brand name of the '90s.

It has a certain status, almost.

I like the style.

I like how clothes are made.

[reporter] But no matter what you buy,

Tommy Hilfiger's name will be

all over the merchandise.

See, look. I got the jacket on there.

We were onto something

outrageously enormous

and it was not only for the hip-hop crowd,

but it was for young people

who wanted to be in touch with the culture

and look cool.

Britney Spears became my Tommy girl.

Usher became one of my Tommy guys.

We used Aaliyah, Beyoncé.

We really surrounded the brand with stars.

[Wintour] Tommy saw the importance

of hip-hop and music

and he was listening to people

all the time,

and people that he felt knew

much more about that world than he did.

But he saw a way to turn it into clothes

that the world wanted.

[announcer] Give it up for

Naughty By Nature!

[Enninful] I remember walking

to the Natural History Museum.

It wasn't like any fashion show you'd see.

It felt like a party,

like a block party, essentially.

All the colours. All the supermodels.

Yeah, Tommy brought his magic to London.

We'd never seen anything like it,

and the whole town went crazy.

[rapping,

Naughty By Nature "Hip Hip Hooray"]

[Tommy] We had a hip-hop artist,

Treach from Naughty By Nature,

rapping and performing on stage

while supermodels like Kate Moss

and Naomi Campbell

were strutting down the runway.

And that, to me, was super exciting.

Tommy asked us to do this show in London.

And so, I was in London with Kate

and it was so much fun.

And I was meant to just walk,

but, you know,

it was just like, went with the moment.

Went with the flow.

Can't take yourself too seriously.

[chuckles] I don't know if you'd

call it dancing but tried anyway.

It wasn't something that we planned.

It just happened that way and it was real.

It was incredible.

The way he did it

was just so slick and so on point.

You know, we're in the fashion world.

We're not in the music world.

But the way things just merged then,

it was anything could happen

and it just made us feel like

we were part of this movement somehow.

In hip-hop, there is no boundaries.

There is no ceiling.

And if you can think it, you can be it.

Thank God, I met a Tommy Hilfiger

who was open to it.

[Goldie] The whole Tommy thing

has really blown up.

And for a corporate company to be so large

and have a lot of respect for the street,

which is where I think Andy did

a lot of hard work

in New York

with a lot of the rap artists and stuff,

it's definitely breaking boundaries.

[Enninful] He did very well

out of the Black community

and the Black community

felt like Tommy was theirs.

And that's very, very rare.

Somehow, Tommy Hilfiger in the '90s,

being able to tap into

the collective zeitgeist of Black America.

[Ambrose] Seeing these kind of

all-American blue blood brands

like Tommy Hilfiger being reimagined

in these environments

was a huge coming of age.

It became, "How can we buy

into this culture?

"How can we buy into hip-hop?

How can we buy into street fashion?"

Because people could see

that there was a lot of money to be made.

It was this really amazing time.

FUBU was growing.

Damn, FUBU, you all came a long way, man.

[John] But if you look at

really successful brands,

they've always had brand ambassadors,

and so now, I decided

that's what I want FUBU to be part of.

LL Cool J is a huge superstar.

Can you tell me a little bit about

what you're wearing today?

I'm feeling it.

I'm just feeling rebellious.

I'm feeling rebellious.

I'm making a statement.

And LL lived in the neighbourhood

and I would go over to his house.

I would say, "Hey,

can you wear something?"

And LL would wear it

once in a while here and there.

But then all of a sudden, the Gap

and many other companies at that time

started to see how hip-hop was growing

and they were like,

"Yeah, LL, can you do this commercial

and can you write the rhyme

"and, you know, whatever?"

And he felt insulted.

This was the whole reason FUBU existed.

Because he felt like they didn't care.

So, he said, "Hey,

I have this custom-made hat that I wear.

"Can I wear it?" It's a FUBU hat.

They say, "Whatever. We don't care."

I know you like your outfits stylish.

Any other line but the Gap is childish.

He does this commercial.

And then he says in there,

"For us, by us, on the low."

G-A-P gritty. Ready to go.

For us, by us, on the low.

Well, remember. There's no social media.

I don't think the Internet

is out at that time.

So nobody can say, "Hey, Gap,

guess what you're doing?

"You're airing a FUBU commercial."

Gee, get it going, daddy.

Gap is on the move.

Everybody from the Gap

and the advertising agency got fired.

However, their analytics showed that

the target market they were trying to hit

increased 300%

because the kids

thought they can find FUBU in the Gap.

How easy is this?

The Gap camp called me up and we agreed.

They spent another $60 million,

re-airing that ad.

And everybody was happy.

Fall into the Gap.

And then, all of a sudden,

believe it or not,

a little group who nobody wanted to dress

called NSYNC

said, "Will you dress us?" And I said,

"Absolutely not."

They said,

"Why? 'Cause of the colour of our skin?"

"No, because it looks like you're about

to make some corny-a*s music."

-My name is Joey.

-I'm Chris.

-I'm Lance.

-Hi, I'm Justin.

And I'm JC.

They said, "Come down to Orlando,

"listen to our first single

before it goes out."

I go, "Whatever, I'll come by

your stupid-a*s studio,

"listen to your stupid song."

And I walk in and I see this guy

in the corner and I go,

"Are you Justin

from The Mickey Mouse Club?"

"I love The Mickey Mouse Club.

Of course we'll dress you."

-Boom!

-[pop music playing]

FUBU then hit Middle America.

Started to sell out everywhere.

Not only in the inner city,

but in Kansas, but in Europe.

They bought FUBU

because they wanted to be part of hip-hop

and it was the white kids who were

also revolting within the system.

It was no longer just a Black thing

and it was a crossover thing.

And it seeped into other neighbourhoods

and communities.

They definitely were like,

"We want a piece of that action."

So, at this time, music was changing

and the fashion was changing as well.

And then, Mary J. Blige, Lil' Kim

and Missy Elliott,

they want to feminise

what the female rapper looks like.

Some people call it high end,

low end, this, this and that.

But it's ghetto fabulous.

That's what it is.

[woman] You look great.

[Blige] I think, you know, as a woman,

you get to a point

where you want to look sexy.

That's what happens, evolution, evolution

and you just grew into shoes,

grew into tight clothes.

I think the fashion in Britain is like

The shopping is the best.

That's where I got my outfit from,

Je Suis.

[chuckles]

Fashion was everything to us

because it made us feel fabulous,

ghetto fabulous.

When I first heard the expression,

I was like,

"What does that mean?" You know,

because there's nothing glamorous

about the ghetto.

[Hylton] The term

"ghetto fabulous", right?

A lot of people

don't really understand it.

But, like, if you know, you know.

[Enninful] Ghetto fabulous,

means everything that's rich.

Everything that makes you wake up

in the morning and feel like,

"I'm looking amazing today."

I can't say this on camera.

I was gonna say, "I'm the sh*t."

[chuckles]

I wasn't afraid to put a pair

of Timberlands and a pair of Jebeles on

and put a pair of diamond studs

on with it and a fur.

I was wearing platinum hair and red hair

and we were doing

whatever we wanted to do.

[Elliott] We know how to take something

from the thrift store

and mix and match it

and make it look like a million bucks.

Ghetto fab. [chuckles]

[Blige] When Fendi got hot,

we couldn't stop wearing Fendi.

I was just all label.

Chanel, Chanel, Chanel. Gucci, Gucci,

Gucci. Gucci down. Chanel down.

Dolce was really, really nice too.

I definitely got hooked.

You know, I was a label h*. [chuckles]

We just loved it.

[rapping, Missy Elliot "The Rain"]

Music videos most definitely

played a part of the change.

[Ambrose] In a music video,

you're able to dream. It's not reality.

We were being as ambitious

and rogue as we could be,

because we didn't have

any point of reference.

[Missy Elliot]

"The Rain" video is so special.

That is me.

When you look at that video, it explains

who I am as an artist and as a person.

I was very fearless back then.

Me and June Ambrose,

we were on the same frequency.

The Missy Elliott blow-up suit was

a take on a Michelin Man kind of energy.

Most high-fashion pieces initially weren't

designed for curvy women of colour.

But I just loved playing with scale

and size and I

You know, if the trend

was everything was fitted,

then I was the one that wanted it to be

oversized and baggy.

And it was a huge risk.

That suit was very hard to construct.

It was, you know,

latex and patent leather.

It was built with an inner tube

and it was binded with tyre glue.

But when Missy was performing,

the suit had a very slow leak.

And I was behind her with a bicycle pump,

every take, pumping air back inside of it.

[laughs]

If you look at the video,

it ended up working out for the good.

Because it was deflated,

it allowed me to bend it

and go all down to the floor and stuff.

So, yeah, that suit was one for the books.

[Goodman] I mean, "The Rain"

is just completely brilliant,

because first of all, the creativity

and the artistry were astounding.

Plus, the fact that it influenced

so many designers since then.

To this day, that is probably

one of my favourite videos.

And mainly

because it was culture shifting.

We're merging music and fashion.

And it had such impact.

Vogue couldn't ignore hip-hop style.

They couldn't ignore that these women

were the talk of the world.

This is a big, big sh**t.

You don't understand, this is so much fun.

They called my two best friends

in the whole wide world,

Missy and Mary, and we're here doing

a photoshoot for Vogue

and that's gonna be dope, right?

That's gonna be hot.

[Goodman] So, Vogue, in 1998,

decided to get onboard,

you know, kind of presenting

this new image of female hip-hop culture.

[Wintour] I don't pretend

to be a music expert.

But what intrigued many of us at Vogue

was the idea

of the sort of collision

of hip-hop culture with fashion.

Vogue is about the zeitgeist.

Vogue is supposed to show

what's of the moment.

-And there you go.

-Hi.

And they couldn't ignore hip-hop.

-This is my best friend.

-Look at her nails. Look at her nails.

We have diamonds today.

Hip-hop fashion as high fashion.

I don't necessarily think I was thinking,

you know,

high fashion was embracing hip-hop.

Hip-hop was embracing

high fashion. [chuckles]

This is pink fox. It's beautiful

and then we have, like,

some other things from Versace.

I love you, Donatella.

She hooks me up all the time.

I don't wear fur now.

But back then, you know, we were all

rocking the furs and I felt high end.

We just thought this was a fascinating mix

of personalities and clothes.

It did feel different and original

and unlike anything that Vogue

had created before.

I remember that day very well.

We had a blast.

It was sister love. [chuckles]

[Goodman] Those women,

they were very powerful,

and the power came through

when they really decided

what they were gonna wear,

when they were gonna wear it,

how they were gonna wear it.

I mean, it was just fabulous.

[Ambrose] When I saw Mary J. Blige

and Missy Elliott and Lil' Kim in Vogue,

it made me so proud

because I knew these young ladies

always belonged there.

That they were worthy of it.

They deserve to be on the pages.

I remember looking in Vogue and seeing

the picture of Missy, Mary and Lil' Kim

sort of tussling in front of the camera,

looking fabulous.

And the pull quote of it is,

"Trading baggy for Bulgari.

"Women in hip-hop are going glam."

Going?

We'd been.

We weren't just starting to get into glam.

We've been glam.

So, they were behind the curve

when they came to

what we brought to fashion

and how powerful our fashion was.

But that's how it was then.

[Blige] We don't get chances like this.

So, just to be looked at in Vogue magazine

is like a real step up for women like us.

You know what I am saying?

So, I'm honoured to be a part of this.

[Kevyn Aucoin] You know,

we've come a really long way

but we have a really long way to go.

I wish we were doing a cover

instead of inside pictures,

I'd love to see them on the cover,

these women.

It took a lot to be able to get in Vogue,

and the strength of just showing

three Black women

in this particular article,

that was a huge deal.

We were contributing to fashion in a way

that could not be denied.

Like, you could no longer ignore it.

Now, we're on TV.

We're in music videos.

We're in commercials.

Everywhere you go,

you see hip-hop influence.

The outfit, girl. The outfit.

-Tell me

-You like it?

-Did you design it?

-I designed it.

[Elliott] Lil' Kim,

she will always be iconic.

She was doing all of this stuff

way ahead

And there was no Lil' Kim before Lil' Kim.

One weekend, I was hanging out with Missy.

We were talking about music and fashion

and all that stuff

and Missy says, "You know what?

"Lil' Kim is such a bad b*tch.

"If I was Kim, I would just be like,

'Eff it' and have a whole titty out."

And I was like, "Hmm. That's interesting."

Yes, the iconic Lil' Kim outfit,

you know,

with the big ole t*tties. [chuckles]

I didn't mean to say that.

I meant to say big ole biddies.

[laughing]

[reporter] This year's

MTV Video Music Awards

brought a big crowd to an unlikely spot,

New York's Metropolitan Opera House.

[crowd cheering]

But as usual

with this unpredictable event,

the official awards were not

the most interesting part of the show.

Hi, MTV. I'm finally here.

Everything's set.

I'm showing off my new outfit.

When I saw Lil' Kim in the lilac dress

with one breast out, I thought, "You go."

No one had really seen that before.

They're like, "Is her boob out?

What's happening?"

Now, that's a fashion statement.

[Hylton] I knew that it was risqué

but I just wanted to create this look.

So, I found

this beautiful Indian bridal fabric.

It's lavender and silver sequins

and a little bit of white lace.

It was absolutely gorgeous.

And I knew that I wanted it to be

very feminine

because she was going to have

one boob out, right?

Did somebody make this for you?

It's amazing.

Yeah, my stylist, her name is Misa.

She's here today.

Kim loved the outfit, as you could see

in all the footage, in all the photos.

She's glowing.

She feels happy. She's feeling

like Queen Bee. She loved it.

I just love the fact

that she just left the house like that.

She brought her world to the MTV stage.

You know, ghetto fabulous had arrived.

[Kardashian] I just remember

watching it from home,

that MTV lavender look with the pasty,

and being like,

"Oh, my God. She's so cool."

The original diva of R&B, Miss Diana Ross.

[Hylton] That pasty

was held on with eyelash glue.

But it stayed on all night. Even after

Diana Ross did the little fondle.

[laughs]

I mean, the moment was iconic

because we were on stage

with Diana Ross and that's it.

Iconic moment. Period.

Can you imagine Kim doing that

in this time period of social media?

She'd have

There would have been like Instagram down,

Twitter down, Facebook down,

TikTok down, Twitch down, everything down.

It was a testament to the fact

that hip-hop

was now shaping the fashion landscape.

Everyone was talking about Kim

and how she, like, owned the night.

I call my mom and she's like,

"Oh, my God, Misa.

"You and Lil' Kim are everywhere.

"I couldn't believe

that you designed that.

"But I loved it." [chuckles]

[triumphant hip-hop music playing]

Thinking about how far hip-hop culture

has come, it's been quite the journey.

[reporter] Fashion brand Louis Vuitton

is tapping music star Pharrell Williams

as the label's next menswear designer.

It was such a brilliant move to bring in

someone like Pharrell,

who's always loved fashion.

And he's always understood fashion.

Brought in all these different elements,

celebrity and music and

Just a sense of joy.

[Enninful] It was hip-hop

and high fashion in Paris in love

and Pharrell was doing it

in the most vivid and unapologetic way.

It's important to have Black designers

sitting at the head of the table.

We're kind of dictating

what's hot out there.

[Wintour] The inspiration of hip-hop music

and the way they dressed

changed the world.

I mean, Dapper Dan

was right from the get-go.

[John] African-Americans had been

designing clothes forever, right?

But now, we were starting to be seen

in front of the camera

as the actual designers.

We're being recognised as game changers.

We're being recognised as people

that you want to be in business with.

[Ambrose] What's happening in terms

of all the high fashion houses,

celebrating and emulating urban culture.

Putting them in a place of power.

It's because of the seeds we planted then,

because of the work we did then.

It's not given to us. We earned it.

Stores were opening everywhere,

everywhere.

We were building, building, building.

Everybody wanted the bags.

They wanted the shoes.

When I got arrested,

I was wearing Polo everything.

You've got to be tuned in all the time.

Seeing the thong on the runway.

Oh, my God, that's so crazy.

Exquisite.

American designers have become rock stars.

When Vogue run that ad,

it caused an uproar.

So, I'm a bad boy. What do you want?

Next thing I knew, I was on the front page

of the New York Times.

As far as the eye could see

Just screaming girls.

I just was shocked

that this man kept his word.

The more left-field the people were,

the better.

She was interesting

and she has an attitude

and she was the girlfriend of Madonna.

I mean, you're not going to say no

to Madonna in the '90s.

[theme music playing]