To follow up on my attack on hip hop fashion, I got another look at the March issue of GQ and noticed that Marc Ecko’s getting into some nice work with colors, though his Ecko Unltd. website doesn’t communicate that. Partly I’m still playing catchup with what’s happening with fashion so it will continue to be hit or miss. I’m just not that interested in the primary color trends I’m seeing in a lot of hip hip fashions as well as over at Izod. Plus, I have absolutely no desire to see preppy fashions make a comeback.

On a related note, Ecko got his start with t-shirts and has definitely run with the ball since then. I’m looking at getting into t-shirts myself but it’s a long ways off and may not be hip hop related. I’m even thinking of attending this workshop with Liz TerboLizard.

In related fashion news, Russell Simmons (reg req) states that the “ideas that come from the streets are the ones that pay the bills in Paris,” but what if Paris starts looking at different streets? While it’s true that hip hop has created numerous trends in fashion, Simmons assertion that when “we choose something, we choose it for the world” is a dangerous assumption in the always fluctuating world of fashion.

Recent Baby Phat runways shows included a rad handbag (reg req) designed by Shana Kent-Kincaid. The bag is described as resembling a boombox at first glance and was a response to a Baby Phat “theme [that] was said to be based on James Bond, and Kent-Kincaid says she spent considerable time looking at Bond photos.”

The article continues:
“The biggest challenge, she says, is the pressure to come up with something different at a time when everybody is seeing the same movies, street culture, exhibitions and other trends. The boxes were urban, modern, fresh and sleek enough not to compete with the clothes.”

In loosely related news, The New York Times recently reported on Gwen Stefani’s appropriation of Japanes Gothic/Lolita fashions that has caused great controversy in the communities from which the styles originated.