Getting Giggy with A Hoodie

By Joel Stein

Whites have always bitten off black culture (the beatniks, rock 'n' roll, everything Quentin Tarantino has ever done). It gives them that cool, outsider image they so desperately need. But over the past few years, black kids have been taking fashion cues from the whitest of the white: ski gear, polo shirts, hiking boots, N.H.L. jerseys. The gold chains and dangling clocks of the '80s have been replaced with sweaters in bright primary colors with polo embroidered on the front. Jeans are in, but the baggier the better. Ski jackets are pumped up to Michelin Man proportions. Things have got freaky, albeit in a decidedly unfreaky way.

For the past three years this baggy-preppy scene has been dominated by giants like Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger, but now more than two dozen tiny African-Americanowned labels are beginning to steal some of their cool. And even a little bit of cool can be worth it: it may look like merely oversize jeans and hooded sweatshirts, but the $5 billion male urban-clothing niche is growing faster than any other apparel category except, perhaps, lingerie. And how long before Hilfiger offers low-slung panties with his name on the butt?

Boutique labels like FUBU, Naughty Gear, Phat Farm, Pure Playaz, UB Tuff and Wu-Wear can legitimately claim--as they do, over and over--closer connection with street fashion than Hilfiger has, even though their clothes look a lot like his. But that street cred, along with their funky logos, is helping them gain ground. FUBU, which means "for us, by us," began in 1992 when Daymond John, at 24, started selling tie-top hats on the streets of New York City. The hats caught on, so he drew up some ideas for coats and shirts and asked his mom to teach him to sew. Then she remortgaged their house for $100,000, gave him the money and let him turn the place into a mini-factory. He has a really nice mom.

In 1995 John and his three partners took their wares to a fashion trade show in Las Vegas; they sold $300,000 worth of clothing in just a week. Soon after, Samsung America agreed to distribute their $69 shirts and $800 bubble jackets to hip boutiques like Dr. Jay's and Casual Male on the East Coast. Last summer Macy's began carrying the line in its 10 East Coast stores. "That was like cutting our own album and headlining above Michael Jackson at Wembley Stadium," says John.

Even more than hard work, luck or an agreeable mom, FUBU's success was due to a strategy straight from Phil Knight's playbook: it got the ubiquitous LL Cool J to sign an endorsement deal. The trick to hip-hop-fashion money, even more than offering slick styles, is somehow to get a rapper--preferably one on heavy rotation on MTV--to wear your stuff. Dr. Dre is dipped in Karl Kani, Mase gets giggy in Mecca, and Busta Rhymes is decked in Ecko. "Videos are hands down the best advertising you can have," says Mike Clark, the chief operating officer of Wu-Wear, the label started by the rap group Wu-Tang Clan, all of whose members wear it constantly. "It's the best way to cross over." And those who can't yet afford an official-endorsement deal send free outfits to as many famous people as they can find addresses for and hope they will wear the clothes in public. Celebrities who have worn Wu-Wear include Icelandic singer Bjork, the rap metal band Rage Against the Machine and athletes Ricky Watters and Shawn Kemp.

Last year Wu-Wear made $10 million and opened four stand-alone stores filled with Wasp staples like varsity jackets, pea coats, hooded sweatshirts ("hoodies") and ski caps ("skullies"). Wu- Wear is one of the first inner-city styles that actually look good on white kids. And, of course, it's white guys who make up a big hunk of the hip-hop clothing market. FUBU was surprised to learn that as fly as it may be, one of its top markets is Washington State. Even those who take their fashion tips from PBS are joining on: when LL Cool J appeared on the Charlie Rose Show wearing a FUBU T shirt, the company received phone calls the next day from viewers asking where they could buy one. And the best barometers of mainstream America, Japanese junior high students, are buying the look almost exclusively, dragging their wide-bottom jeans through the streets of Kyoto and Tokyo. Phat Farm, the cartoonishly rural-themed stores selling the hip-hop label started by Russell Simmons, the founder of Def Jam Records, says one-third of its customer base is in Asia.

Even some of the smaller labels--employing between 10 and 30 workers--have the distribution pull to get to Asia, and they're becoming players on the domestic scene. Positano, which is only two years old and still without a marketing staff or advertising budget, can be found in the Beverly Hills Macy's, smack between Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren. Ecko, which started selling clothes in 1995 from a two-story walkup in Manhattan's Washington Heights, had no department-store distribution when it grossed $36 million last year and was commissioned to design a 20-piece collection for The Lost World. But more than half the new street labels aren't really ghetto startups. They're vanity labels from music personalities like Wu-Tang, Simmons, Shaquille O'Neal (who also has his own record company, TWIsM, for The World Is Mine) and Chuck D. It's a Disney-like cross-pollinating strategy that, if it holds, can only lead to Wu Cafes and Wu Cola. Mmmm.

Many of these small designers insist they aren't dependent on a particular fad--that their labels can jump with the trends they pick up from the streets. Positano's Charles Lapson, one of the hippest designers in Los Angeles, is already looking to stay ahead of the curve, moving toward inside logos and some slimmer fits. But analyst Laurence Leeds, managing director of the Buckingham Research Group, thinks none of these companies will ever be as big as Hilfiger. "Fringe fashion is never volume," says Leeds. "What these companies do well is move fashion forward, but I have doubts whether the businesses can grow much larger." And despite their braggadocio, the designers may have doubts themselves. While Nike plans to unveil its new slogan--"I Can"--during the Super Bowl, Karl Kani will be pushing his basketball sneakers under a slightly less confident slogan: "Can I?"

--Reported by Patrick Cole/Los Angeles and David Thigpen/New York

With reporting by Patrick Cole/Los Angeles and David Thigpen/New York