The History of Urban Clothing

Urban clothing is also known as hip hop clothing and was originally established in New York City in the late 1970s by various music artists. These style trends quickly spread to other large cities such as Chicago. This style of clothing changes regularly as music artists produce new fashion trends.

• Urban clothing was originally developed in the late 1970s to early 1980s due to the rising popularity of hip hop music. Many teenagers that listened to this new style in music wanted to dress like their favorite artists, leading to the growth or urban clothing designers.

• Big designers realized that there was money to be made by marketing to this niche, and created lines of clothing that were similar to the designs of those being worn by popular artists at the time. Commercials were geared toward this trend in an effort to market to this target niche.

• Urban clothing has changed over time to incorporate African designs. Many popular African American urban music artists started to wear clothing that was traditional to the African designs, such as oversized clothing and head wraps. These styles appeared in the early 1990s and were promoted by popular artists such as MC Hammer.

• The 1990s brought many changes to the urban clothing design. Neon colors were introduced by many artists and quickly caught on with many fans. Adidas shoes, which were commonly worn, were now replaced by Nike due to the marketing done by popular basketball player Michael Jordan.

• The "gangster" style was a popular urban clothing design that was developed in the 1990s as well. This style incorporates oversized clothing, baseball caps, skull caps and converse shoes. This gangster style is still worn today and promoted by many fashion designers.