Marc Jacobs challenges appropriation claims with hip hop-inspired line

One season after Marc Jacobs caused an uproar by featuring models in faux-dreadlocks in his New York Fashion Week show, the designer isn’t shying away from interpreting different cultures on the runway.

Jacobs’ Fall collection, which he debuted Thursday, was openly hip hop-inspired, as models paraded tracksuits, puffer jackets, shearling coats and heavy gold chains. The models all wore oversized hatswhich were “inspired by the haberdashery and elegance of Andre 3000,” according to Jacobs’ press notes.

Titled “Respect,” Jacobs’ notes made a deliberate attempt to recognize the roots of the culture he interpreted in his collection.

“Several months ago I watched a documentary called Hip-Hop Evolution,” he wrote, referencing the 2016 four-part series that traces the genre’s first 20 years and, according to Jacobs, “gave way to a whole new language of style."

Jacobs described his upbringing in NYC, where he first witnessed “the influence of hip-hop on other music as well as art and style.”

“This collection is my representation of the well-studied dressing up of casual sportswear,” he wrote. “It is an acknowledgement and gesture of my respect for the polish and consideration applied to fashion from a generation that will forever be the foundation of youth culture street style."

Unlike last season, where his models wearing the faux dreads were largely white, the casting for Thursday’s show was far more inclusive, closer to a 50/50 split between white and nonwhite women.

One of those faces was Winnie Harlow, the model who has become the public face of vitiligo, from walking in previous fashion weeks to appearing in Beyonce’s Lemonade.

The show saved its musical references for the end, as models paraded through the silent Park Avenue Armory before assembling outside, posing in front of an enormous speaker system.

Thanks to his more diverse casting and more purposeful acknowledgement of the cultural inspirations behind his collection, Jacobs won’t likely meet the same waves of criticism he battled last year. However, it’s worth noting that the streetwear that Jacobs and other designers pay homage to on their runways was once maligned as “ghetto” by fashion’s mainstream.

Alongside brands like FUBU and Rocawear, Kimora Lee Simmons created her Baby Phat line in 1999. In an interview with the Fader last year, Simmons criticized the fashion industry for its current infatuation with “urban” looks after spending the previous decade marginalizing her designs.

“Maybe they call it American fashion but at the time it was ‘ghetto fabulous,’ it was ‘urban’, it was ‘hip-hop culture,’ it was “streetwear,’” she said.

“Now, they’re doing the baggy silhouettes, the layering of pieces, all of the Afrocentric hairstyles like a real afro. Now you’re seeing it on the runway. You’ll see dreads, big braids, and on and on with the make-up trends. You’ll see braids on some celebrity and it’s like, ‘Oh, they started that trend.’ No, they really didn’t.”

Among the famous names present for Jacobs’ Thursday show was Lil' Kim, who walked the runway for Simmons’ Baby Phat collection in 2008.

Katy Perry, an artist who has also faced criticisms of cultural appropriation in the past, also attended the presentation.

"I guess I'll just stick to baseball and hot dogs, and that's it," she told Rolling Stone in 2014, after coming under fire for appearing as a geisha at the 2014 AMAs. "I know that's a quote that's gonna come to (hurt me), but can't you appreciate a culture? I guess, like, everybody has to stay in their lane? I don't know."