30th Jul 2007
Girbaud does not = Hip-Hop
Went to the Francois and Marithe’ Girbaud Le Jean debut party last week and still trying to wrangle an interview (should be coming soon…I hope). There were a smattering of great pieces here and there. All in all it was pretty uneventful not because of the designs, they were different. Mostly because of the crowd, and I’ll get into that. The news was basically that Girbaud is moving away from hip-hop and is trying to embrace a wider audience (or he was embracing the wider audience and hip-hop just naturally fell in). You couldn’t tell that completely from seeing the line, but there is definitely a move away from the baggy, pocket-low jeans that you’re used to seeing. Now keep in mind that I said the event was… uneventful.
Until…
David Foxley of The New York Observer posted something on their blog a couple of days later that was DEAD ON. His jist was primarily that although Girbaud is moving away from the hip-hop crowd, he still had a decidely hip-hop audience. It also didn’t help matters that the DJ at the event was spinning…hip-hop.
I can understand his point. There’s nothing wrong with the genre except that when it comes to fashion (and everything else for that matter) they are particularly fickle. Today you’re in, and tomorrow you’re 50 cent. I digress. In this instance, I am inclined to say that Girbaud doth protests too much. If he’s not catering to the crowd, then the crowd would not have shown up. It really was a decidedly hip-hop audience. Well dressed, edgy, in the know hip-hop youth were everywhere. So what did Girbaud tell the Observer? Here’s a quote:
“To be just connected in the hip-hop stuff is other brand; there is people like Russell Simmons or Damon Dash or Puff Daddy or all this kind. I’m not the rap people. Sure, we introduced the baggy jeans, we introduced stonewashed and all this stuff in the 60’s or 70’s, I never target just to be ethnic. It’s stupid.”
-Damn
You can read the full article here.
Posted by Eva @ 5:00 am
August 18th, 2007 at 1:08 am
In my opinion, Girbaud fell off a long time ago. Rocawear has been surprising me lately though.