WELLESLEY FALLS, Mass. Jennifer Wilkins doesn’t get many strange requests in her job as a sales associate at Talbots, the upscale women’s clothing store, in this suburb of Boston. “One time a woman wanted to return a pair of Capri pants after she wore them horseback riding because the material pilled up in the seat,” she recalls. “That’s about it.”
Unsightly pills formed in the seat
So this evening stands out for her as she unlocks the front door after closing time to admit Sound E-FEX, a rapper from the tough Dorchester neighborhood of Boston, and his “posse” for a private showing of the retail chain’s fall collection. “What up, dawgette?” Sound says to Jennifer as he enters, a bottle of Courvoisier in one hand and a Phillies Blunt Sour Apple cigar in the other.
“Hello Sound,” she says as she gives him an air kiss. “You’re not going to light that thing, are you?” she ask with a polite but stern tone.
“Naw, you know me—I just like to suck on ‘em,” Sound says with a grin.
“All right,” she says with obvious relief. “I’m breaking enough rules letting you in after hours.”
“Hey—you got to live on the edge, y’know,” Sound says philosophically.
“Come on in the back,” Jennifer says graciously, and Sound and his entourage of eight men and women make their way past flannel nightgowns, Loden coats and kilts. “I’ve got some really nice things to show you.”
In terms of total sales, purchases of traditional women’s clothing by male rappers is a small but growing phenomenon, says Liz Cutler, editor of Women’s Wear Daily, the fashion industry’s bible. “It all started with OutKast,” she says of the Grammy-winning Atlanta-based duo whose ground-breaking decision to wear Burberry plaid in a music video sparked the craze. “But what’s really added fuel to the fire,” she says, “is all the phony white ‘wanksters’ from the suburbs.”
Indeed, Sound E-FEX is blunt in his assessment of the middle-class teens who emulate “gangsta” styles. “They got the droopy pants and the Timberlands,” he says, “but they ain’t real.” Thus, Sound and others like him are forced to take drastic measures to stay one fashion step ahead of the crowd.
OutKast
“The one fashion rebellion suburban kids will never join?” says WWD’s Cutler. “Imitating their mothers.”
And so Sound and his buddies are cooing over a new shipment of cable-knit cardigans that Jennifer Wilkins has spread out on an antique pine table for their consideration.
“Ooo—I like that bright green one!” Sound’s friend BakWurdz says.
“Stick with the pink,” says Sound.
“Pink is perfect for casual parties,” notes Jennifer Wilkins.
“Yeah—like if you was with a bunch a playas and everybody wanted to go to a club or sumpin’,” says Sound E-FEX’s girlfriend of the moment, Pho’Netique.
High-end consumer products companies have struggled over the years when their brands have been adopted by low-income buyers. Cadillac, for most of the twentieth century the car of choice among upwardly-mobile African-Americans, did not feature a black man in its advertisements until well after the civil rights movement had achieved most of its gains. “We felt it was time, and the right thing to do,” said Mark Gordon, president of General Motors’ Cadillac division at the time. The ad showed a Fleetwood model parked in front of a lawn jockey.
More recently, the French champagne maker Louis Roeder became the subject of a boycott when rapper Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter took offense to comments by Frederic Rouzaud, the company’s president, who suggested that he wouldn’t mind if rappers switched their allegiance from its Cristal brand to Dom Perignon or Krug. Rouzaud says his comments were taken out of context. “It was great publicity when Busta Rhymes broke a bottle of our sparkling wine over the head of Source Magazine’s David Mays,” he explained, “J’etre en bas avec que.” (I be down with that.)
Wilkins’ own son is a wanna-be rapper who goes by the name “Prince SAT” to flaunt his 740 score on the SAT II Biology test. He says he plans to make a dramatic shift in his wardrobe to stay current with the new trend. “I’m going to buy a blazer.”
This story first appeared on Amazon Shorts as part of “Our Friends, the Rappers”
