It's Official, Harlem's Dapper Dan And Gucci Are In Business

GQ reports that back in May, Gucci creative director Alessandro Michele found himself the subject of some snippy online chatter—and just as quickly turned a potential problem into a genuinely exciting solution.

While showing Gucci’s Resort 2018 collection—one of those between-seasons collections stuffed with new luxury wares tasteful rich ladies, like caftans and gigantic hats—Michele marched a look down the runway that garnered some unexpected attention. It was a jacket: a brown bomber with ballooning sleeves done up in brown-and-tan Gucci G’s. To eagle-eyed observers, the piece looked a whole lot like one made by Dapper Dan in the ‘80s.

Dap—real name Daniel Day—is the Harlem couturier who spent much of that decade inventing his own kind of sampling, remixing luxury goods from brands like Gucci and Louis Vuitton into newer, weirder garments worn by local and visiting royalty. And all of a sudden, Dapper Dan was on a high-fashion runway. An explanation shortly cropped up: Gucci’s Instagram account called the jacket an “homage,” and the two parties told the Times in September that they planned to reopen Dap’s boutique—only this time, with Gucci’s help.

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