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Dapper Dan: Made in Harlem: A Memoir Hardcover – July 9, 2019
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY VANITY FAIR • DAPPER DAN NAMED ONE OF TIME’S 100 MOST INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE IN THE WORLD
With his now-legendary store on 125th Street in Harlem, Dapper Dan pioneered high-end streetwear in the 1980s, remixing classic luxury-brand logos into his own innovative, glamorous designs. But before he reinvented haute couture, he was a hungry boy with holes in his shoes, a teen who daringly gambled drug dealers out of their money, and a young man in a prison cell who found nourishment in books. In this remarkable memoir, he tells his full story for the first time.
Decade after decade, Dapper Dan discovered creative ways to flourish in a country designed to privilege certain Americans over others. He witnessed, profited from, and despised the rise of two drug epidemics. He invented stunningly bold credit card frauds that took him around the world. He paid neighborhood kids to jog with him in an effort to keep them out of the drug game. And when he turned his attention to fashion, he did so with the energy and curiosity with which he approaches all things: learning how to treat fur himself when no one would sell finished fur coats to a Black man; finding the best dressed hustler in the neighborhood and converting him into a customer; staying open twenty-four hours a day for nine years straight to meet demand; and, finally, emerging as a world-famous designer whose looks went on to define an era, dressing cultural icons including Eric B. and Rakim, Salt-N-Pepa, Big Daddy Kane, Mike Tyson, Alpo Martinez, LL Cool J, Jam Master Jay, Diddy, Naomi Campbell, and Jay-Z.
By turns playful, poignant, thrilling, and inspiring, Dapper Dan: Made in Harlem is a high-stakes coming-of-age story spanning more than seventy years and set against the backdrop of an America where, as in the life of its narrator, the only constant is change.
Praise for Dapper Dan: Made in Harlem
“Dapper Dan is a true one of a kind, self-made, self-liberated, and the sharpest man you will ever see. He is couture himself.”—Marcus Samuelsson, New York Times bestselling author of Yes, Chef
“What James Baldwin is to American literature, Dapper Dan is to American fashion. He is the ultimate success saga, an iconic fashion hero to multiple generations, fusing street with high sartorial elegance. He is pure American style.”—André Leon Talley, Vogue contributing editor and author
- Print length304 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherRandom House
- Publication dateJuly 9, 2019
- Dimensions6.4 x 1.13 x 9.54 inches
- ISBN-100525510516
- ISBN-13978-0525510512
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Editorial Reviews
Review
“A dream maker from Harlem.”—Nas
“Truly a gift.”—Taraji P. Henson, Emmy- and Oscar-nominated actress
“A fantastic and cinematic writer.”—Phoebe Robinson
“Dapper Dan makes manifest through garments what Black flyness, Black intelligence, Black struggle, Black courage, Black hustle, Black progress, Black resistance and Black royalty looks like. Never did he rattle a beggar’s cup outside of a fashion industry designed to exclude him and all who looked like him. He took what he wanted from the establishment and built his own damn house. His life story is a wonderful tale of brilliance, hard work, perseverance, and hustle—America at its best.”—Michaela Angela Davis, writer and image activist
“Dapper Dan is not just the epitome of style and grace, but an international treasure. He is a cultural icon who has pioneered his own path through the fashion industry, one that will influence generations to come.”—La La Anthony
“A grand raconteur.”—Margo Jefferson, author of Negroland
“A purveyor of the American Dream.”—Elaine Welteroth
“Dapper Dan is a living legend, a creative icon, and a godfather to the Black community. His inspirational story isn’t just about fashion. It’s about adventure, struggle, curiosity, hustle, love, and a singular determination to change one’s life.”—Bethann Hardison, model and activist
“Dapper Dan is the original influencer, disruptor, and creative—a true visionary who inspired inclusion for those who weren’t always invited to partake in fashion. His legacy will forever impact the intersection of style and culture, reminding us all to remain authentic and live unapologetically.”—Ashley Graham, model and author of A New Model
“[The story of a] remarkable and unlikely evolution . . . an intriguing and twisty tale about the hustle and the hustler, and it is eloquently and engagingly told . . . There is a profound vulnerability in Day’s story and a striking self-awareness as he recounts both his successes and failures as a man, father, son, brother, husband, and entrepreneur. In the end, [this book] is, like him, an inspiration.”—The Root
“It is part fashion story; part personal memoir; but also part business book extolling the virtues of creativity and hard work; part metaphysical and spiritual exploration; part history of Harlem, its Black community and diverse cultural mix, and fashion and hip-hop’s intersection; part meditation on identity and more. If that sounds like too much, it’s not. . . . Dapper Dan contains multitudes, and so does his book. Pick it up to spend some time in the mind of a truly creative and clever innovator.”—Fashionista
“A streetwise adventure in Super Fly style.”—New York Daily News
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Nobody’s Poor
I’m old enough to remember another Harlem. Before the heroin game overtook the numbers game, before crack overtook heroin, before a US president moved his offices uptown, and before white people started pushing strollers across 110th Street, I knew a Harlem where you didn’t have to lock your front door.
I’m talking about a Harlem that was still in the midst of its Renaissance, a Harlem swinging to jazz and bebop, a Harlem beating with the warmth and life of gospel music by day and teeming—teeming!—with people and excitement and glamour by night. I’m talking about a Harlem where older women from the South with uncanny multitasking abilities sat outside on stoops or in windows high above the street sewing clothes, peeling vegetables, and spreading gossip, all while keeping watch over the neighborhood children, missing nothing. “Danny, go get your sister Dolores outta that street,” Miss Marguerite, a neighborhood woman who knew us all by name, would snap from her window lookout.
A Harlem crowded with lounges, restaurants, music venues, ballrooms, and movie theaters. A Harlem where my friends and I would hold taxi doors for women in mink stoles and crouch at the feet of men in suits and bowlers, shining their patent-leather shoes to a sparkle. Lexington Avenue had cobblestones, and every now and then you’d see a horse and wagon clopping up the street. A Harlem of life, lights, and all kinds of humanity. Black restaurants, Irish bars, Italian social clubs, Latin dance halls. That Harlem, the Harlem of the 1950s, was the first Harlem I knew, the Harlem I inherited, the Harlem I was born into. My mother, Lily Mae Day, didn’t trust doctors or hospitals, so she gave birth to me at home with my grandmother Ella getting off her sickbed to play midwife. I never met Grandma Ella cause she died only two days after I was born, so all I can do is imagine her holding me and wrapping me in a blanket: “It’s a boy, Lily Mae.”
“Another one?” I can hear my mother’s exhausted reply. “Lawd.”
It was the summer of 1944, and I was my mother’s fourth boy in a row. It couldn’t have been easy. When I came out the womb, everyone marveled at the size of my head: “Wow, his head as big as Moon’s.” Moon was my older brother James, two years old at the time, nicknamed on account of the planetary size of his head. Mine was just as big, so they nicknamed me Little Moon and started calling James Big Moon.
The official name they gave me was Daniel, but when my parents went downtown to file my birth certificate, some clerk screwed it up and put me down as “Danial.” It wasn’t just me, either. My mother gave birth to three more children, all girls, and we each had inaccurate information on our birth certificates. Wrong gender. Wrong surname. Misspelled mother’s maiden name. They were minor human errors in the grand scheme, but they symbolized a larger feeling of neglect. It was understood, literally from birth, that the system didn’t really care about keeping our information correctly, that it didn’t really care about us.
Cause we were poor as hell. Poorest of Harlem’s poor. Dirt poor. We lived in East Harlem in a five-story tenement building on Lexington Avenue and 129th Street. My parents had come to the city as part of the Great Migration, and they struggled and fought to survive in an overwhelming new urban reality. My father, Robert Day, worked three jobs, while my mother managed us seven kids, a thankless full-time job. My parents and their generation were new to city life. They had come from tight-knit rural communities in the South where everyone knew each other, and in the early days of black Harlem, they did their best to re-create those communities.
All the doors to the apartments in our building stayed open all day long. Aunt Mary, my mother’s first cousin, lived above us and could holler out her apartment to ask my mother to borrow sugar, and my mother could holler back a reply. We never needed house keys. The front door of our building was always kept propped open by a heavy rock, and our mutt and two cats just came and went as they pleased, in and out, just like us. Each block was its own microcosm of small-town Southern life. Each neighborhood was associated with a particular region, so that you had the people who came from South Carolina living in one area, the ones from Virginia in another. I didn’t meet a black person whose family was from North Carolina until I visited Brooklyn, where a lot of them had settled. That’s how specific these neighborhoods were.
And not only that, if you were from a particular town in the South, say Spartanburg, South Carolina, you often came to the city specifically to live on the Spartanburg block. Every bar and church and restaurant on that block would be full of folks from your little hometown. Folks knew each other from back home. And that generated respect and a sense of safety. People bonded over their shared histories, slang, and culture. But in the years to come, as these small neighborhood communities in Harlem were bulldozed and replaced by high-rise project buildings, the city started grabbing people with no concern for where they’d come from, disconnecting folks from each other and their way of life. Neighbors didn’t know each other, didn’t share anything, didn’t feel a sense of respect or safety among each other. Doors started getting padlocked. You ask me, I think a lot of the bigger problems in Harlem today can be traced back to the destruction of those houses and that more connected way of life.
Our building was in a neighborhood almost exclusively made up of folks who had come from South Carolina and Virginia, with maybe a sprinkling of folks from Georgia. We knew everyone in our building. It was a private tenement, real intimate, and my father worked as the superintendent. Nine of us Days lived crammed together in a small three-bedroom apartment, sharing a single bathroom. There was a restaurant run by a Greek guy named Jimmy on the ground floor where my father also worked maintenance and where we’d often get free leftover soup for dinner.
Every single morning, we’d wake up to gospel music coming from the radio, which was my mother’s doing. She was deeply religious and started the day with the sounds of Joe Bostic’s Gospel Train, the oldest and most famous gospel radio show in the country. Bostic, a pioneer in his own right, mainstreamed gospel music and introduced gospel legend Mahalia Jackson to the world in 1951. Of course, us kids didn’t think too highly of him. I can appreciate gospel music now, but back then we couldn’t stand it, especially the show’s repeated tagline, “The train is a-coming!”
In the kitchen, we’d pull a box of Corn Flakes out the cupboard and a bottle of milk out the icebox. Everybody had iceboxes back then, no fridges yet. You’d have to actually buy ice to fill the thing and keep the food cold. We bought our ice from Del Monte, an Italian who used to ride around the neighborhood in a blue truck, calling out from the street: “Ice for the icebox! Twenty-five cents apiece!” For a quarter, he’d put a big block of ice in his bucket, lift it onto his shoulder, and carry it upstairs for you. We’d pull out the cold milk, then we’d smack the cereal box on its side two times—whack, whack—to make sure we got the roaches out before we started pouring it into our bowls. Then we’d eat our cereal.
For our first years of school, my mother sent me and my older brothers, Carl, Cary, and James, to a Catholic school two blocks from our house, All Saints, on Madison Avenue between 129th and 130th Streets, which is still there. They had a little sunken play yard where they’d let us out during the day. The mothers used to come and throw pennies and nickels down, and the kids would take the change and line up to buy candy. Every morning, I’d always ask my mother, “Mom, could you please come and throw me a nickel during recess?”
But she never came.
When I got older, I was grateful to my mother for sending us to a good private school in the first place; I realized that she was far too busy at home with my younger sisters, Dolores, Deborah, and Doris, to come back to school to throw me a nickel. She woulda had to load up three kids in the middle of the day just so I could get a piece of candy. But at the time, it just made me so sad. Looking back, an experience like that probably made me a good hustler. On a subconscious level, I understood that if I wanted anything, I’d have to get it myself, cause ain’t nobody coming.
Product details
- Publisher : Random House (July 9, 2019)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 304 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0525510516
- ISBN-13 : 978-0525510512
- Item Weight : 1.25 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.4 x 1.13 x 9.54 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #99,013 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #87 in Fashion History
- #179 in Fashion Design
- #3,263 in Memoirs (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
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Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonCustomers say
Customers find this memoir engaging and quick to read, with a compelling human success story that provides valuable life lessons. The writing is well-crafted, and customers appreciate the vivid storytelling and the author's exceptional talent. They praise the author's remarkable tenacity and perseverance throughout his journey.
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Customers find the book highly readable, describing it as a fantastic and quick read, with one customer noting it feels like a conversation.
"This book is great! I learned so much about the life of Dapper Dan that I had no clue about...." Read more
"...Love the Memoir and your journey!!!" Read more
"Such a wonderful read. If you need inspiration Dapper Dan will give you it and so much more. Step out side of your field and learn from others...." Read more
"I thought this was a great read , quite the story of adversity and success" Read more
Customers find the book's story compelling and fascinating, describing it as a beautiful and educational tale of Harlem success.
"...Your energy and how you expressed your life story was captivating and sucked me in. Love the Memoir and your journey!!!" Read more
"Dapper Dan is a hiphop legend. To read his story, his childhood amd inspirations was an honor...." Read more
"...A amazing story of person conviction, perseverance and Ultimately peace of one’s greater mind...." Read more
"...As a clothier, it's great to learn the history of the industry I'm a part of." Read more
Customers find the book inspiring, with one customer noting how it provides a detailed glimpse of humanity and another highlighting its raw truth about success.
"...read this book because I am a graphic designer and its given me motivation to keep on pushing! Thank you for your Memoir Dapper Dan!" Read more
"...energy and how you expressed your life story was captivating and sucked me in. Love the Memoir and your journey!!!" Read more
"...A amazing story of person conviction, perseverance and Ultimately peace of one’s greater mind...." Read more
"I thought this was a great read , quite the story of adversity and success" Read more
Customers praise the writing quality of the memoir, finding it well-crafted and easy to read, with one customer highlighting the clarity of Dapper Dan's expression.
"...Very little to do with fashion until the very end but it all makes sense and ties in together. Hustlers , Rappers, Con Men, Stylists, Drug Dealers...." Read more
"...A good read and well written." Read more
"...Dan's life is so Very inspiring, & full of lessons that are çlearly spelled out. Great Inspiration, I'm blessed to have read it." Read more
"A very well written book. Well articulated and I didn't feel like Dapper Dan just dictated to someone to write his biography...." Read more
Customers appreciate the book's style, noting it goes beyond fashion, with one customer describing it as a must-have for style enthusiasts.
"...recommend this book to hip hop lovers and historians, but also lovers of fashion, and those working inside the industry...." Read more
"...would stay up all night on my sewing machine to create an awesome outfit to wear that day and you better believe that I was super fly...." Read more
"...played music from outdoor speakers, being fresh pressed and dressed with immutable style, rocking fashion all your own and being 'cleaner than the..." Read more
"...One of the best books of fashion & NYC IMO." Read more
Customers praise Dapper Dan's exceptional talent, with one customer noting how he surpasses his competition tenfold.
"...Dapper Dan is an interesting self-made man. His family story needs to be a movie!" Read more
"...His sense of fashion is superlative and far surpasses his competition ten fold...." Read more
"...I enjoyed his humble beginnings, the love of his siblings as well as their struggles to overcome the many environmental obstacles one must contend..." Read more
"...Thank you for keeping it real... and Mister Daniel Day is a very humble man... a true American. Do not hide truth... truth matters!" Read more
Customers appreciate the vividness of the memoir, with one noting that it isn't all bright and shiny.
"...I really like that his memoir isn’t all bright and shiny. He cops to everything he did, without excuses...." Read more
"the truth is the best buy for me. I love this book, and it is so real. I lived in this era." Read more
"interesting story, so vivid and colorful" Read more
"...A charming and richly woven tale of one man’s passion and determination...highly recommended!" Read more
Customers praise the author's remarkable tenacity and perseverance.
"...His combination of creativity, street smarts and sheer determination allow him to break new ground and then resurrect his career after events beyond..." Read more
"...Daniel Day’s vision, entrepreneurial spirit and stead-fast grit are truly inspiring...." Read more
"...very inspirtational and compelling life story. your tenacity and perseverance is truly remarkable, because most people including myself would have..." Read more
"I loved this book. I really admire Dapper Dan's tenacity. He kept pursuing his dream no matter what transpired in his life." Read more
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- Reviewed in the United States on July 16, 2019This book is great! I learned so much about the life of Dapper Dan that I had no clue about. I do not want to spoil any parts of this book but it definatey fills in the generational gap in the Black community. I knew about some of the events going on in the past but my uncles and family members concealed alot of information from us in hopes we didnt fall down that same path. This book fills in a huge block of information for me and details the pitfuls so I can avoid making the same mistake! We need more inspirational figures to step forward in our community to do the same to help inspire the youth so Random House yall need to do memoirs on everyone lol! Im so blessed to read this book because I am a graphic designer and its given me motivation to keep on pushing! Thank you for your Memoir Dapper Dan!
- Reviewed in the United States on November 13, 2019Man... What can i say. This is hands down my favorite Memoir i have ever put my eyes on. I bought it on audible which is 1 credit. I listened to the entire memoir 8 times. I then bought the book just to have the physical copy. Man listening to this i learned soo much. I learned about how areas like harlem came about, it never occured to me that people from harlem were actually made up of people from the south. Crazy how after the war I never thought that people from the south would spread out to the north, that should've been obvious. Your energy and how you expressed your life story was captivating and sucked me in. Love the Memoir and your journey!!!
- Reviewed in the United States on June 3, 2024Such a wonderful read. If you need inspiration Dapper Dan will give you it and so much more. Step out side of your field and learn from others. A hustle mentality and wisdom will take you places you couldn't fathom
- Reviewed in the United States on October 30, 2019Dapper Dan is a hiphop legend. To read his story, his childhood amd inspirations was an honor. I would recommend this book to hip hop lovers and historians, but also lovers of fashion, and those working inside the industry.
To hear how such an iconic move thinks and plans or doesnt plan his next move, to sit with Mr Dapper, was like listening to a successful elder give gems of not only life, culture, and fashion, but of life amd survival.
Also interesting was the mention of Justice Sotomayor whom in her books speaks of her early law career in the fashion/trademark world. To read the artiste perspective was interesting.
Whether one agrees or not with Mr Dappers perspective on what his styling amd designs were, be it trademark infringement or custom design, to walk with him through the times, era, and culture of the 40s through modern business and culture, is a widening of understanding and reasoning in humanity and business. He did what he did because resources were few. He is who he is because he made resources where there otherwise were none. Nothing but respect.
- Reviewed in the United States on April 20, 2022This story of Dapper Dan has changed my own outlook on growing old. I honestly have never been exposed to a senior black man that I wanted to be like if I were to make it past 30 until I read this book. A amazing story of person conviction, perseverance and Ultimately peace of one’s greater mind. Thanks to this book, I’m now looking forward to growing to be old and great. Good job and thank you Dapper Dan.
- Reviewed in the United States on December 25, 2019I give this book an 8.5/10 Ive always admired and respected Dapper-Dan and his influence not only in Hip-Hop but in power houses fashion brands that came to him not the other way around. With that being said I wish Dapper-Dan would of included how he re-opened his boutique store in collaboration with Gucci and how that came about. Im aware they called his store and his son and he told Gucci to come to Harlem if they was serious. But that was left-out.. I believe that this is an important piece left out in the book and one that I was actually looking forward to read on...
- Reviewed in the United States on February 26, 2024I thought this was a great read , quite the story of adversity and success
- Reviewed in the United States on March 1, 2024I loved this book! It gave me insight to the mind of a clothing mastermind. As a clothier, it's great to learn the history of the industry I'm a part of.
5.0 out of 5 starsI loved this book! It gave me insight to the mind of a clothing mastermind. As a clothier, it's great to learn the history of the industry I'm a part of.History of urban clothing
Reviewed in the United States on March 1, 2024
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Top reviews from other countries
Alex ArtamonovReviewed in Canada on September 29, 20245.0 out of 5 stars Mint condition.
Literally, the book is in mint condition.
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Sara ZReviewed in Italy on January 25, 20255.0 out of 5 stars Un must read per chi vuole conoscere la storia dell'Hip Hop
La storia del costume Hip Hop e la storia di un uomo dalle mille vite.
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UlrikeghReviewed in Germany on September 1, 20195.0 out of 5 stars Mode
Tolles Buch
internationalreview.co.ukReviewed in the United Kingdom on September 21, 20215.0 out of 5 stars Wise words from a style icon
This books is essential. Gripping, insightful, and incredibly written. And original voice and a true storyteller.
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elodieReviewed in France on August 23, 20195.0 out of 5 stars Merci
Il a été livré en parfait état #excellent
