Black Influencer Spotlight III
Welcome back to the third installment of the Black influencer spotlight with 3KINGS Grooming. This month we will spotlight two men influencers, both spanning two different decades.
Let us know who you would like for us to spotlight next in the comments!
Daniel ‘Dapper Dan” Day, a Harlem native, started in fashion in 1982 when he opened Dapper Dan’s Boutique. The boutique became a central location for custom reworked pieces from remade high fashion items. Unfortunately, an infamous FBI raid of Dan’s boutique along with the litigation by luxury brands, caused him to close his business in the 1990s. The designs and reworks of high-end fashion brands such as Gucci and Louis Vuitton, Dapper Dan, began to take celebrity clients who often preferred Dan’s style over the original brand themselves. With the pressure of angry brands, Dan was moved out of his storefront but still found ways to provide styles to clients such as Jay-Z, Eric B. and Rakim, KRS-One, LL Cool J, Big Daddy Kane, and more. After about two decades of receiving recognition from the Black community and others, Dapper Dan would get his just due. Dapper Dan’s sleeve jacket made for Olympic sprinter Diane Dixon would be copied by Gucci Creative Director Alessandro Michele; receiving plenty of backlash, Michele would apologize. Gucci would later release a collaborative collection with Dapper Dan. He now has his own atelier business located in Harlem, NY.
Brooklyn based, Haitian-born prolific high fashion label creator, Kerby Jean-Raymond holds many titles - creator of Pyer Moss, Creative Director of Reebok, and founder of the charity Your Friends in New York. He is a supporter and has spoken out against issues of racial injustice in the United States. Jean-Raymond has centered three of his Pyer Moss collections—American Also, Normal, and Sister- around stories of the Black American experience. He has received various awards for his roles in fashion and racial issues; in 2014 he won the FGI Rising Star Award for menswear and was a finalist in the debut DHL Exported Prize presented by IMG Worldwide, named on Forbes' 30 Under 30 list in 2015, and was given the CFDA American Menswear Designer of the Year in 2020. Jean-Raymond became the Vice President of Creative Direction for Reebok in 2020.
#blackinfluencers #Black #influencers #fashion #luxury #DapperDan #KerbyJeanRaymond
Sources:
-https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/black-fashion-influencers-to-follow-models-designers-stylists
-https://blog.dapperdanofharlem.com/
-https://www.esquire.com/style/mens-fashion/a34222229/kerby-jean-raymond-reebok-creative-director/
Photo Source:
-https://www.insider.com/study-black-influencers-make-significantly-less-money-2021-12
-https://www.npr.org/2019/07/08/739508701/dapper-dan-telling-stories-in-leather-fur-and-logos
-https://www.esquire.com/style/mens-fashion/a34222229/kerby-jean-raymond-reebok-creative-director/
