LAME: Look At Me, Everyone

By Thomas Edralin

LAME (Look at Me, Everyone) by Thomas Edralin speaks about branding and brand reputation in the clothing industry, more specifically within fashion and streetwear. Conversely, the book investigates why consumers may feel compelled to chase such contrived surfaces, such as a brand name or a logo, in the first place.

• Language: English
• Publisher: New Degree Press
• Release date: Sep 17, 2021
• ISBN: 9781637305546

Book preview

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LAME

LAME

Look At Me, Everyone

Thomas Edralin

New Degree Press

Copyright © 2021 Thomas Edralin

All rights reserved.

LAME

Look At Me, Everyone

ISBN

978-1-63730-448-8 Paperback

978-1-63730-553-9 Kindle Ebook

978-1-63730-554-6 Ebook

chapter 1

Introduction

The nickname Dapper Dan may be one of the cleanest monikers I have ever heard.

A mere two-word phrase spurred on by alliteration, the name rolls off the tongue quite well. Really, it highlights the brilliance of simplicity, reflecting the intersection between true form and fashion. In essence, Dapper Dan is an appropriate alias for the person it represents.

Born as Daniel Day in 1944, Dapper Dan was a clothing retailer and boutique owner based in Harlem during the 1980s and 90s. During the store’s initial years in the mid-1980s, a man entered Dapper Dan’s Boutique one day carrying an expensive Louis Vuitton pouch, eager to show off the iconic logo often conflated with high opulence and social standing. According to a New York Times article, Day wondered while watching the man revel in his bag, If that’s how he feels about the pouch, how would he feel if that Louis Vuitton pouch became a whole outfit?

That astute observation ultimately led Dan to the conclusion his audience was likely more interested in the symbolism and status associated with brand names.

This conclusion was especially true given the dire circumstances in his area at the time. The thing was, there was a major crack epidemic plaguing urban centers across the United States, and Harlem was no different. As a result, many residents became involved with drug trafficking as it was a fairly lucrative business, consequently having enough disposable income for high-end fashion. These dealers wanted to flaunt their wealth and reputation through loud, brand-name clothing, something luxury manufacturers didn’t offer at the time since it didn’t fall in line with their overall vision.

The label is everything. The label is the thing the gangster clientele use to let the other gangsters in the street know, ‘You ain’t got what I got.’ The label or logo sets you apart.

–Daniel Day

Wanting to take advantage of the presented opportunity, Day decided to produce knocked-up versions of luxury apparel by sampling popular logos and printing them on blank leather, creating jackets and other clothes often highlighted by excessive, conspicuous logos and flashy leather. His designs became so well known that popular hip-hop acts such as LL Cool J and Eric B. & Rakim eventually started rocking his clothing, providing great publicity as the name Dapper Dan became well known in urban centers across the United States.

However, as the saying goes: All good things must come to an end. Eventually, he had to shut down his boutique in 1992 due to circumstances beyond his control. Ironically, the heightened popularity led to his demise, as legal action from Fendi and then-US Attorney Sonia Sotomayor shut down Dapper Dan’s boutique over his illegal use of logos and other copyright issues. However, this story has a happy ending. In 2017, Day was hired by Gucci and currently runs an eponymous atelier in Harlem where his boutique once stood.

I wondered if streetwear and stories like Day’s represented how these brands can cater towards fashion trends as well as consumer’s tastes; what I found is that the body of streetwear culture can offer a powerful insight into other important areas as well.

For starters, streetwear is a loose term describing urban clothing styles inspired by a myriad of cultures and countercultures such as skate, surf, street, and much more. Over time, it has evolved into a top-heavy industry where the popular brands such as Supreme and Nike tend to garner most of the general interest and demand due to their overall legacy and such logos being emblematic of streetwear itself. In fact, according to a survey conducted by HYPEBEAST and Strategy& (PwC), 62 percent of streetwear enthusiasts list brand legacy as one of the most important factors in purchasing a product.

Ideally, streetwear is a progressive medium expressing individual personalities and personal style. However, the industry has become more of a rat race where the premise is to have what the next person doesn’t. Through exclusivity and positioning as cultural status symbols, firms embrace this concept to drive demand.

While it has developed a greater mainstream appeal in recent years, streetwear is still far from achieving consistent demand from the general public. Considering there are numerous fast fashion stores such as H&M and Forever 21 that are willing to sell a T-shirt for less than fifteen dollars, there are certainly far more convenient, albeit limited, ways to achieve a semblance of style. Simply put, most people are thrown off seeing thirty dollars or forty dollars on the tag of a T-shirt as there is an ongoing belief highly priced clothes are just a waste of money.

As a kid, my dad used to tell me he believes that plain, brand-less clothing is ideal because wearing someone else’s logo or brand name is essentially free advertising. Given that clothes can sometimes be evaluated for function rather than form, it’s a fair and realistic assessment. However, it is possible to some that a logo can just be another meaningless design to the general eye.

When I first forayed into streetwear, I was simply attracted to the iconic, vibrant red Supreme box logo that was second nature to many popular celebrities and personalities. I unknowingly conflated status with attire, and considering many of my favorite rappers and celebrities wore these popular brands of clothing like Supreme, I thought wearing the same would guarantee me the exclusive, appealing image I desperately wanted.

As a result, I made it my goal to always have a Supreme product on my person, thinking these exclusive items would grant me the status, and eventually, the security I wanted. It probably looked extremely funny, but I guess I was too caught up in trying to be someone else to realize my ludicrousness.

On March 8, 2018, Supreme released a branded water bottle on their website for thirty-six dollars (plus a nice ten dollar shipping fee!). While the bottle had no tangible improvement in quality, it had a nice, big Supreme logo printed on it. Given that the price wasn’t extremely high, I thought to myself, Why not buy it?

As I walked down the stairwell on my way to lunch, it suddenly hit me. I had literally spent forty-six dollars on a bottle just for the loud presence of a simple brand name scrawled around its exterior. Looking at it more closely, the overall quality was synonymous to a basic, cheap aluminum bottle you would see selling for ten dollars on Amazon. Eventually, since it wasn’t built to perfectly handle daily use, the bottle severely dented, leaving it nearly worthless. It currently collects dust in my closet.

Why was I so drawn to and fascinated by popular brands in the first place? What are the deep, underlying causes that lead people to act in such a similar way as I did? Conversely, how do brands and personalities leverage such reputation and appeal to their own personal benefit?

The whole of the streetwear industry offers a unique insight on how to build anything predicated on sales and public interest. Really, it usually requires an authentic vision as well as unorthodox tactics, something that focuses on individuality and appealing to the consumer’s senses in order to incite a purchase. In fact, according to the same survey conducted by HYPEBEAST and Strategy&, the top reasons consumers reported liking streetwear are cool, comfortable clothing, exclusivity, community, and status.

Streetwear is more than a mere interest in expensive clothing. Streetwear is a creative medium. It produces both fashion trends and movements and further reinforces concepts such as authenticity and exclusivity that come to influence other parts of life and culture.

chapter 2

Answers | Definitions

Whereas artists and renegades forged streetwear in the shadows of the underground, in 2017, the finicky media spotlight is determining what—and more critically, who—is streetwear.

–Bobby Kim, Co-Founder of streetwear brand The Hundreds

For a term as popular, exciting, and widespread as streetwear, you would think there’s a surefire methodology in describing what it actually is. It’s sort of ironic that while there seems to be a shared, universal view on what can constitute as streetwear (really, just comfortable and trendy clothing), there seems to be a lack of congruence regarding the overall definition of it. Who is right?

The simplest (and easiest) answer would be that the media decides—the journalists, magazines, and entertainment companies that cater towards all things relating to popular culture. Being the unofficial face of online streetwear news, they come to define what streetwear really is to the everyday individual. While there’s room left for nuances given the subculture’s lack of structure and insistence on creative freedom, these companies (i.e. Complex, Highsnobiety, and nowadays, GQ and Vogue) have full sovereignty on deciding what to push and what not to push as streetwear. Given their credibility as well-known news sources, it’s fair to assume the general public’s views are more or less shaped on their opinions.

Frankly, these media sources should be trusted as the people directing these are likely to be well accomplished