00:01One, two, three.
00:04Let me see the picture.
00:06Ooh, we look rich as .
00:10I'm a real Harlem girl.
00:12I'm born and raised on 150th Street and 8th Avenue.
00:15The 80s and the 90s were my era.
00:18Christie Brinkley may seem to be the uptown girl
00:21from the Billy Joel song, darling, but I've erased that.
00:24And I'm the real uptown girl.
00:26Growing up in Harlem, it was a crack epidemic.
00:30And, you know, there were a couple of safe spaces in Harlem
00:33that you could go to as a teen.
00:35One of them was Harlem Week.
00:37And then another space was at the Apollo,
00:40which was our kind of runway show.
00:43We had our own music, we had our own language,
00:46and we also had our own style.
00:48And a big part of that equation was the man
00:51that I have forever called the Harlem Coutulier,
00:54Mr. Dapper Dan.
00:57Our cars, interior decorated.
00:59We had our outfits decorated.
01:01We had to be a moving decoration.
01:03You would see people in the most amazing,
01:06extravagant, fabulous looks.
01:09Guys and girls who were getting money.
01:13Entry-level planger leather jacket with the logos on it
01:16was $1,200 a star.
01:18To actually become friends with Dapper
01:21was one of those things that you aspired to
01:23because he was elusive.
01:25You had to be a gangster
01:27or you had to be an original Harlemite
01:29to get to see me.
01:31I know all the gangsters.
01:32I'm a service to gangsters.
01:35I was open 24 hours a day.
01:37Yes.
01:38365 days a year and I never closed.
01:40The unfortunate part of all is here.
01:43The attention that I got, the birth of hip-hop.
01:46Then Mike Tyson coming to the store,
01:48has this big fight.
01:49No matter who you blame for causing the fight,
01:52the number of nagging questions won't go away.
01:54Why was the world heavyweight champion
01:56shopping in Harlem for a leather jacket
01:59embroidered with the phrase,
02:00don't believe the hype,
02:01at 4 o'clock in the morning?
02:04That was my lifestyle in the beginning.
02:06But when I got a good look
02:08at where that money was coming from,
02:09I said, no, this is not for me.
02:11So I went to Africa.
02:12The next thing you know,
02:13I had 23 African tailors.
02:16A three-story building
02:17and a 2,000-square-foot
02:19manufacturing facility,
02:20all in Harlem.
02:24Had the intentions of thinking
02:25that I was going to be able to buy it
02:27from major distributors.
02:29You know, I couldn't get major brands
02:30to sell to me.
02:31And of course the people
02:32were getting money at the time.
02:33They wanted the major brands.
02:35The major brands not selling to me.
02:37So I took the brands
02:39and made a brand
02:40that became our brand
02:42that they had to come get.
02:44You have to master
02:46the history of your culture
02:48so that you can introduce
02:50levels of fashion
02:51into what you create.
02:53We built this fashion thing.
02:55Yeah.
02:56Right?
02:57We built this fashion thing.
02:58So let's go get it.
02:59And now we gonna walk away
03:00and boycott it.
03:01No.
03:02Now let's see how this thing works.
03:03We need people
03:04that are working outside
03:05of the system.
03:07And we need people
03:08that are working within the system.
03:10I don't need to wear any brand
03:13more than I need to love my people.
03:15But what Gucci has mandated
03:20and the people that they have brought on board
03:23from my girl Beth Ann Hardison
03:25who is the mother of everybody
03:28that works in fashion
03:29that happens to be black.
03:30You know too.
03:31Dapper being there.
03:33People that I know have moved the needle.
03:35I am encouraged.
03:37And if you don't understand
03:38how black history plays itself out
03:41you ain't ready to tear down
03:42these doors for the day
03:44even if the owners are racist.
03:48If you got a multi-billion dollar business
03:51are you gonna interrupt
03:54that businessism
03:58to interject your racism?
04:01That's stupism.
04:05I can say hello.
04:07This part of your life
04:12is第一ther.
04:14I already argued of
04:1561.
04:17All capacity
04:20BVC
04:22at the last 200 meters
04:23What is clear?
04:24It's just that
04:25self-confidence
04:26that is greater
04:28high?
04:30You know
04:31The entire我們的
04:32K roupers
Comments