Book of the Day > GUCCI Dapper Dan's Harlem by Ari Marcopoulos. Published by IDEA UK.

"The most amazing Gucci book yet. Dapper Dan's Harlem by Ari Marcopoulos is a leather bound, gold text embossed bible of Harlem, where Dapper Dan introduced high fashion to hip hop. Black and white landscape photographs are printed on super think bible paper with tipped in colour photographic prints throughout. The colour sections explore Dan's atelier and profile the man himself. 

A local boy made good through his pivotal role in the development of golden-age Hip Hop style and as a pioneer of luxury streetwear, Dap rose to prominence on these streets as Harlem's tailor of choice in the 1980's. His coveted one-off creations were the choice of hustlers, gangsters, rappers such as LL Cool J, Rakim, and Salt-N-Pepa, and boxers such as Mike Tyson and Floyd Mayweather Jr., who were the only ones with enough cash and clout to gain access to the boutique where Dap received his customers 24 hours a day.  He talked about 'Africanising' the European fashion brands, taking that love of luxury but making it relevant to the streets. But when those same luxury brands decided in the early 90s they weren't happy being used in this way, he was forced to take his work underground, only recently re-emerging with a new appointment-only atelier in a huge brownstone on Lenox Avenue (also named Malcom X Boulevard), a unique partnership with Gucci."