Filed under: Hot or Not , Fashion News
Rocawear isn't the hip-hop clothing line it used to be. Shawn 'Jay Z' Carter is pushing to give the brand a new and more mainstream look WWD reports.
"We are a great American brand. We don't envision ourselves as an urban brand or streetwear brand," Jay-Z said. "We wanted to show people how we've evolved and repositioned ourselves, without abandoning our original DNA."
A new pop-up store in New York City's Soho will introduce this new push and aims to attract a broader range of shoppers with a new advertising campaign in the works. The campaign will be a compilation of 37 short videos from a variety of musicians, poets and artists to represent the relaunch.
Jay-Z is nothing if not constantly evolving both with his style and sound. The young rapper who used to write verses about "big pimpin' is now a New York Times bestselling author with a net worth estimated at more than $450 million.
The Rocawear revamp comes at a time when popular artists like Lil Wayne are eager to boast their rap-rock sound, and the concept of a "black" clothing line targeted exclusively toward African Americans, as formerly seen in Karl Kani and FUBU, is out of fashion.
Rocawear now seeks to represent a broader appeal. "When I played the Glastonbury music festival, people said a hip-hop artist couldn't play a rock festival," said Jay-Z. "But culture isn't segmented like that anymore. There's so much cross-pollinization and the same thing is true for clothes."