Beginning in the 1970s Hip Hop fashion has gone from a fringe interest group to one of the faster moving fashion trends in the United States. The greatest concentration of such fashions tends to be along the coasts and in the south. Hip Hop fashion is claimed to have begun in the African American community but has spread quickly into being a truly universal style for people of all ethnicities and sexes and a lynch pin of Hip Hop culture.
Generally Hip Hop clothing is broken into classic styles and modern styles. The former is defined as styles from the seventies and eighties and the later the very late eighties, nineties and after the year two thousand.
Classic Hip Hop includes large glasses, multi-finger rings, gold necklaces, and Adidas shell toes with oversized laces. Hair styles took on a very strong African American influence, many people choosing jheri curls, chains and dreadlocks. Red-black-and-green became common color pallets, made famous by several prominent actors and actresses. This time period was one of establishing Hip Hop as a movement and a very distinctive culture and modern Hip Hop clothing and culture owes its popularity to these 1980s roots.
The more modern style taken in by Hip Hop has much been effected by rap artists who made popular the wearing of brighter colors, often in neon, and wearing usual clothing items in unusual ways. Baseball hats at various angles and clothing worn backwards are good examples of this. As styles closed in on the year 2000 Hip Hop clothing took on an influence from thugs and inmates, larger clothing, belt less pants and military accents became a prime point of recognition of Hip Hop style. Other marks of this change of trend were flannel over shirts and gold teeth, or at least gold fixtures placed over one’s real dental pallet.
Currently there are many places where Hip Hop clothing can be found. Some of the simplest pieces may come from the second hand shop or flea market, but as the Hip Hop style has progressed in complexity and popularity it has been picked up by many big brands, charging a high price for what they provide. In order to push back against this trend online websites such as Depop sprung up, offering trendy second hand clothes at a reasonable price.
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