Gucci Announces Collaboration With New York Icon Dapper Dan

Ever since Alessandro Michele took the reins of Gucci back in 2015, he has been an emphatic advocate for the power of collaboration, working with artists like GucciGhost and Coco Capitán to both inspire and decorate his collections. Now, he is adding a new name to the roster: Dapper Dan, the Harlem couturier who directly influenced his 2018 resort collection. Renowned for designing bespoke pieces for everyone from LL Cool J to Mike Tyson in the Eighties and Nineties, Dan's legacy is one that is embedded in hip hop culture, and is now being suitably revived.

Not only does the debonair legend star in the new, Glen Luchford-shot men’s tailoring campaign, but a capsule collection created in partnership between Michele and Dan will be sold as part of the brand's pre-fall offering this Spring, and Dan – whose eponymous boutique closed in 1992, amidst a flurry of lawsuits from fashion brands whose labels he was reprising on his designs – will be opening his store again, powered by Gucci.

A man who once came under fire for ripping off the Italian powerhouse's double Gs, but who later came to inspire their clothes, is now being directly supported by their financing. Fashion is certainly coming full circle (especially considering Michele came under fire himself earlier this year for directly reprising Dapper Dan’s designs), with remarkably appealing results – after all, in a time where hip-hop culture is having such a directly visible impact on the runways, who is better placed to return to the spotlight than the original tailor behind it all?