7 Ways Hip-Hop "Blackenized" The Fashion Industry

Director Sacha Jenkins's new film shows what it really means to be fresh to def.

"I already know that story," native New Yorkers said when I told them how excited I was about Fresh Dressed, a new documentary that explores how hip-hop influenced mainstream fashion in America — and around the world.

I think they got stuck on the "hip-hop" part, and to some that story is familiar: In the '70s the South Bronx was burning, gangs were "rumbling," and young people took their rage and swagger from street violence to turntables, dance battles, and eventually, rap. What to make then, of the fact that a film about hip-hop's sartorial impact starts before the time period commonly known as the "birth of hip-hop," and goes all the way back to slavery?

"I think the film is smarter than anyone anticipated it being, and I think that it's a blessing and a miracle to a certain extent that I was able to ... say some things I wanted to say and make a film that was entertaining," Fresh Dressed's director, Sacha Jenkins, told BuzzFeed News.

Vibrant, funky, and animated (literally, it features dope animation by artist Hector Arias) — Fresh Dressed embodies the genre it dissects. Here's a few things BuzzFeed News learned, ahead of the doc's premiere this Thursday at 10 p.m. on CNN.

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1. First things first: "Being fresh is more important than having money. The entire time I grew up, it was like I only wanted money so I could be fresh."

This opening quote from Yeezy himself sets the tone for the doc, and it's parroted by everyone from André Leon Talley and Dame Dash, to Pharrell, Diddy, and Nas. Fresh Dressed attempts to unearth the root of why appearance is so important to young black and brown people, while also covering the blossoms it produced, namely the ascent of urban brands like FUBU, Cross Colours, and Rocawear. It's a complex question that can't be given due justice in an 82-minute film, but there's enough info here for the audience to pull at any number of threads to try to unravel it.

"Urban young people are always attracted to or addicted to fashion because it is expression of aspiration," Talley says. "... Aspirational is: Can you go into that store and buy that brand?"

That brand — that aspirational brand — as we see later, ultimately happens to not be the urban brands that hip-hop itself birthed.

2. Channing Tatum graced the catwalk for Sean John.

Fresh Dressed

"When Sean first started doing fashion, and having fashion shows, they were some of the most extraordinary moments during Fashion Week," Talley says in the film. Sean John was one of the few urban luxury brands that competed with legacy fashion houses like Ralph Lauren, and it earned Diddy the Menswear Designer of the Year award from the CFDA — as well as domestic annual retail sales of $525 million.

"There are examples of people who have come from the culture who have done it," Jenkins said in an interview. "The question becomes: Are people consciously supporting Sean John through thick and/or thin? People will continue to support Ralph Lauren through thick or thin, but are we as consumers and as consumers of color saying we are gonna support Sean’s magnificent suits through thick and through thin?"

3. Religion is deeply tied to the way black people in America relate to fashion.

CNN / Via Fresh Dressed

"The term 'Sunday Best' came from a time in slavery when in order for slave owners to be considered good Christians, they had to make sure that their slaves had at least one good outfit so that they could go to church on Sunday, even though most of them were practicing other African indigenous religions," says Alyasha Owerka Moore, co-founder of Phat Farm.

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4. Yet, a common theme Jenkins found among his subjects was fashion = freedom.

"Everyone in not so many words, whether they said 'freedom' or not, it all drilled back to the notion of freedom and the lack thereof, and that the way society works, the way we feel about ourselves, the opportunities we may or may not have — regardless of all the things that are at play when you're a person of color in America — the one thing that we can control, the one thing that we can feel good about, the one thing that we can own ... is how I dress, how we dress. And so that notion kept throwing back to freedom," he told BuzzFeed News.

"But then you think, like, You mean to tell me that as black people in America, the thing that gives us the strongest sense of freedom is the way that we dress? Not the freedom to vote, you know all these other things that we've been denied, but the simple idea of the way we dress gives us a level of freedom that we typically don't experience or that we long for. To me that was like, a pretty powerful idea."

5. Jenkins already knows what you're going to be thinking after you watch the film: Where are the women?

CNN / Via Fresh Dressed

Jenkins said he interviewed more than 70 people during the production of Fresh Dressed, "which is a little bit bananas and unnecessary," he admitted. But having that knowledge makes the lack of female hip-hop artists all the more glaring.

During a screening at CNN in August, Jenkins shared that this was one of the biggest critiques he received after the film played Sundance. As a journalist who has covered music for many years (from 1997–2000, Jenkins was the music editor of Vibe magazine), Jenkins kept it 100: "Hip-hop is extremely sexist, and early on, women were essentially wearing guys' clothes. ... Also their brands didn't have the same impact of the other brands that are featured."

And then he kept it even realer:

"Your black women artists wanted a lot of money for their weaves and makeup," in order to be on camera, he said.

6. Karl Kani is still eating good.

CNN / Via Fresh Dressed

"While Karl Kani hasn't been as big as he once was in the '90s here in the states, globally he still does a lot of business. Karl Kani in Korea for instance, or parts of eastern Europe — Russia! — Karl Kani has been eating globally," Jenkins said.

Just as some of the subjects in Fresh Dressed mentioned, fashion is cyclical, and Jenkins hopes that maybe his film will cause people to discover or fall back in love with some of the featured brands. "There's a renewed interest in stuff from the '90s," he said. "It's nice to see maybe if something like this will create awareness where folks can reconnect with those brands and support them and/or get behind other brands that are kicking off."

7. Hip-Hop is really a metaphor for black survival in America.

CNN / Via Fresh Dressed

Ultimately, Fresh Dressed is not just about fashion or music, it's about a culture, and the commodification thereof:

"I mean hip-hop is like, I always say it's chitlins," Jenkins told BuzzFeed News. "You know what I mean, what is chitlins? It's pig intestines. It's the stuff that slavemasters didn't want. We turned it into an art form. I'm not saying it's the healthiest food. But I'm saying we created something from the scraps of what no one wanted and made it something desirable, and that's what hip-hop is.

"Hip-hop is taking scraps, taking sounds from somewhere else and saying, 'I think that what they did was cool but I'm gonna hook it up in my own way.' And so hip-hop is really a metaphor for black survival in America."

Fresh Dressed premieres Thursday, Sept. 3, at 10 p.m. on CNN.