The MET Carpet “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style” – Dapper Dan
A true legend in the fashion world, Dapper Dan’s presence at the 2025 Met Gala was undoubtedly a highlight for fashion aficionados. He is known for his groundbreaking fusion of high fashion with streetwear and his pioneering use of logomania, he is a “Dandy” in every essence of the word. The enduring influence of Dapper Dan and his impactful statement on the most fashionable night of the year was bold and totally his.
We may be looking at the birth of Dapper Dan’s house logo.“When you see this here,” he says, “it’s because, all those years when I was underground and working with those European brands’ symbols, I came to understand just how powerful they were. And I’m finally doing something with my own symbol. This is that event.”
His heart emblem has deep meaning and is enveloped in history. “This symbol itself, it has a whole history, there were slaves who used to be assigned to iron works. And when they made the iron—the fences and the windows and whatnot—they added a symbol like this. It’s called Sankofa.” (The word comes from Ghana’s Akan society, and translates loosely to “go back and get it.”)
Dap says first learned about the symbol while traveling through West African Monrovia, Liberia.“What it means is going back to recall what has happened: To carry it. Not only us, Black, white, everybody. We cannot deal with where we’ve moved as a society until we go back and pick up and really understand everything that has led us here.”
“When I was a boy, we used to swim in the Harlem River,” he says, using the term most locals do to describe the uptown tidal strait, which shifts direction with the tides. “But we needed to know which way the current was going so we wouldn’t have to swim against the water. We would take a popsicle stick and throw it in to see which way it was going, so we knew where to jump. And that thought stayed in my mind. I said, ‘That’s culture: You’ve got to know when to dive in, and how to follow the flow’.”
Dap is such a legend, this night was made for him!
CHECKED!
