Fashion, you gotta have the fashion
mastered, you know what I mean, like I said
the Kangos, the Clark Wallabies, before
the Clark Wallabies and the Kangos it was
Adidas and Pumas and Pro Keds, mock necks, silver medallions and stuff like that.
But then the Bronx moved on... Well
not really Brooklyn too, you know with the
Jamaican, the Clark Wallabees, and the whole suit pants and the slacks and the shirt,
it was just like a mature look so
it looked good on a young person cause you
know you look better when you young trying
to look old then if you're old trying to
look old, you know. So it looks slick to see a young
kid wearing shoes and slacks and dress
shirts with a you know a little stylish
piece of jewelry here and there, and a little Kango
and a little glasses to sell yourself.
Soul clubs were always great places you could
dress up, you could... They were...
I mean punk started, I'd hate to break it
to you because punk's a very political
scene but the initial punk scene in
London was a load of bored soul boys who
liked dressing up and that's pretty much
what I was at the age of 14, is a kind
of bored soul boy that liked dressing up...
You were a 14-year-old bored soul boy?
Let me talk you through the look: it was a peroxide wedge
with a black underneath, pegged trousers,
rubber sandals and a mohair, mohair jumper. I mean
that whole kind of early punk thing the
mohair jumpers and stuff was a
kind of throwback from the from the soul
scene and as I said you could go to
those things without fear obviously you
ran the risk of being beaten up on your
way to the club but once you're in the
club you were quite, you were quite safe.
We made music, we lived in squats but
I never dressed really like a punk I
always had this end of 70s kind of
dressing style and people always like... The
punks were also very square they were
like, "Oh look how you look you look like
a secretary or some kind of like..." So I
never really felt 100% punk because they
are also very square so.
When I started to run this shop on the King's Road,
Chelsea, called Acme Attractions,
which funnily enough again going back to how
important scenes are, back in my day
shops were these kind of cultural
centers where fashion and new music
movements did emerge. And on the King´s Road there was two shops, Acme
Attractions and the shop owned by a guy
called Vivienne... A woman called Vivienne Westwood and
Malcolm McLaren, I'm sure you're familiar
with and these were the two places that
all the kind of hip young people that
were looking for something else
gravitated towards. Now in Vivian and
Malcolm's shop they were a bit more
Eurocentric. In my shop dub reggae all
day long and what was interesting is
that pulled in as many of the customers
as the clothes did in fact probably more
We hooked up with a lot of guys in the
art world and we just became a one so
you know the idea of me developing the
clothes with the music really worked
hand in hand and I wasn't trying to be a
designer at that time but I was just
trying to make functional wear. And the
idea of the Funki Dread on our
shirts because the dances that we used
to do was so... Like so many people would
be there that people could identify with
the people that were running it. Then
people wanted to buy the shirts, then I
had to go back to the guys in the
warehouse to find out how would I make
these shirts and manufacturing and we
ended up drawing our own sketches and
making up our own t-shirts and it was
more lucrative than the music business
because a t-shirt was like nothing, you know?
In the 80s like shows, fashion shows
would have themes you know so you would
have like the Navy theme, you would have
like you know Technicolor theme, whatever
so people would like I have one track
for a theme then fade it out than have another
theme. It was super... It was quite
childish you know, it was like a school
play or something like that. And then in
the 90s people realize you...
They had to be more focused you know so it
was... A collection was about one idea
this is what I feel like and one kind of
music and the whole thing. The shows
became much shorter. They used to be
like 45 minutes up to an hour, like in
the 80s I've seen shows that
were like an hour and 15 minutes long so
you have time to do basically everything
you know. You can do, file your nails, order
a pizza, whatever. And now it's just...
Go see a fashion show it's like, it's
like watching a video clip more or less,
you know. So it's... We're trying to be as
focused as a video clip because yeah
you have to get it like within the first
45 seconds.
Once I found out about Dapper Dan, that was a whole new
universe, you know what I mean? I went to see Dap and I walked up in the spot
and I was like, “Yo, man, let me get one of those, one of those, one of those,”
and that right there kind of helped the fashion thing, too, man.
I think our music spoke a little louder than what we
was wearin’, because it was more forward, man.
The clothes back then you know people
was wearing them it wasn't that big it
is... You know fashion today and how much
the little kids want to get with what
everybody's wearing today. Back then it
was just you know you got it you got it,
if you don't you had an other hot thing, if
not, you know I mean?
I learned a lot [by looking at] what American influencers are doing in term of images.
I like Nicki Minaj’s body, her Barbie face. Perfect characteristics. I really like it.
And thank God, it’s a big responsibility because
I linked my image to my music. In Angola I am a trendsetter.
If I have long hair, red or yellow, this will become fashionable.
If my lipstick is pink, this will become fashionable.
In the streets, vendors were calling out, “Come and buy Titica’s lipstick. Come buy Titica’s trousers.” This is great.
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