The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
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Dapper Dan: Gucci copied his 1980s Diane Dixon jacket design
“Gucci created this jacket that I created in the eighties for Diane Dixon.”
Dapper Dan: Sonia Sotomayor represented Fendi during a raid on his store
“Sotomayor. Anybody know who she is? Sotomayor. She's a Supreme Court Justice. At this time, she's working for Fendi, as one of the lawyers for Fendi's. She comes in the store with the team.”
Dapper Dan: Major luxury brands copied his all-over logo format
“Today you see the reason Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Fendi, Every major brand is using the format that I use. When you go to the store, look around, look at the artists, they have logos all over, and that's what I gave birth to, that idea.”
Dapper Dan: Luxury brands forced MTV to blur his custom clothing
“They go to Ted Demme and tell Ted Demme, if you show anything that Dapper Dan wears, we're not advertising with you. And that's when you start seeing the blur on what the rappers was wearing.”
Dapper Dan: Louis Vuitton hired Virgil Abloh reacting to his Gucci partnership
“Soon, as Gucci gives me this partnership, Louis had been number one for years, all of a sudden Louis brings up Virgil. Right? Now, you know that's a reaction, because Gucci put me in, and we got a collection ready, and we're shooting it out. Louis Vuitton reac…”
Dapper Dan: 1990s urban fashion brands failed by abandoning luxury positioning
“So they made it so that anybody can have it, anybody can do it, and then it went down, and they all failed. So between the time that I went underground and all these brands emerged, they all collapsed, but this time is giving all the brands, besides, besides T…”
Dapper Dan: Ralph Lauren created Polo Sport to target Black consumers
“Cause that's why Ralph Lauren opened up Ralph Lauren's sport and got that black model Tyson. Yeah. All that was to the lure to bring us in.”
Dapper Dan: Louis Vuitton x Supreme show attendees received note crediting him
“When Supreme made the partnership with Louis Vuitton, when they initiated The line, and everybody attending the show was issued a letter stating, ah, I want y'all to hear this in the back, stating that this whole collection is inspired by Dapper Dapper.”
Dapper Dan Undercut Harlem Retailer A.J. Lester's on Andrew Marc Jackets
“So I'm paying 400 dollars for the jackets, and I'm selling them for eight. My competition was the most popular store in Harlem called A.J. Lester's, right? A.J. Lester's is selling the same coat for 1200.”
Dapper Dan sold 30 to 40 custom Guess outfits daily, generating $100k
“I started making these little outfits for girls, these little guests with the little, like a little cheerleader skirt, and nice little tops with the guest symbol, and the skirt and the symbol match with that little guess what on it, and I started selling like …”
Dapper Dan leveraged FUBU's retail distribution footprint to sell underground apparel
“I had a friend who worked for FUBU, so I knew what their distribution was, so I went to every place they was at. Going west, and I come back and did the same thing going south.”
Dapper Dan: Hip hop will eventually morph into a new platform
“Now, you know, every 20 or 30 something years, we get a powerful cultural platform. You know, we've had jazz, calypso, Rock and roll. All these powerful platforms by which the whole world embraces our music that we can take advantage of, but they don't last fo…”
Dapper Dan's fashion career was inspired by a Fulani tailor in Liberia
“And so, ah, and that's, in Monrovia, Liberia, I had, ah, ah, a Fulani Taylor. And, ah, that's where the whole concept for me, ah, Getting involved in fashion.”
Dapper Dan: I served nine months in an Aruba prison over credit card fraud
“Next thing I know, they pull up on us, and I didn't I didn't see freedom for nine months.”
Dapper Dan: Early Credit Card Fraud Sentences Maxed Out at 90 Days
“Even if you got caught, you would get just 90 days. Nobody got more than 90 days.”
Dapper Dan: There were only three Black furriers in America
“There was only three black furriers in the country. There was one called the, he was the most popular, the black furrier in New York, and there was two in Chicago”
Dapper Dan Scaled His Harlem Workshop to 23 Senegalese Tailors
“I was up to 23, tailors. Yeah, all from Senegal.”
Dapper Dan: Tommy Hilfiger built his brand seeding jackets in clubs
“Tommy Hilfiger starts going to the hip hop clubs and giving out Tommy Hilfiger jackets. Ah, yeah, right, right, right. You know, giving them out Tommy Hilfiger jackets, right?”
Dapper Dan: Father was born in 1898 to a formerly enslaved father
“My father was born in 1898. That's 33 years after the Emancipation Proclamation. My father's father was born a slave and later free.”
Dapper Dan: Harlem Shifted From Number Games to Drug Culture in 1960s
“The drug epidemic didn't hit to the sixties. So the first part of Harlem, you see, was like numbers, the number game, policy, that used to take place, and everybody used to bet on numbers, and then it was like, They had people who was like had maybe drinking p…”