Dope Movie Clothing: 90s Fashion Throw Backs
If you haven’t seen the movie Dope yet then you better get your ass down to the movies (or just the internet yeah?) stat. The best throwback 90’s hip hop movie we’ve seen, it’s like a mash up of Menace II Society and Boyz N the Hood with House Party and Friday but set in 2015.
The geeked-out, early 90s culture-obsessed trio of our unlikely hero Malcolm (played by Shameik Moore), awkward “14 percent African” Jib (Tony Revolori), and ballsy lez Diggy (Kiersey Simmons) are best friends and high school losers who do a whole lot of growing up when accidentally getting involved in a drug deal involving street corner gangsta Dom (the smooth-as-ever A$AP Rocky in his movie debut) in where else but Inglewood, California.
We even get a featuring role for Blake Anderson (from Workaholics) as the tech-head weed smoking, pill-popping white boy Will, who helps the gang out in their crazy adventure. He’s the one with the hook ups for selling the dope to the consumers – white kids who go to Coachella and Lollapalooza.
Other characters are the crazy/sexy and usually naked Lily (played by the gorgeous model Chanel Iman) and hip hop legacy Quincy Brown (Puff Daddy, an executive producer on the project’s adopted son) as her rich kid brother Jaleel.
We get classic scenes like riffling through 2 Live Crew records in the record shop, the love interest (that’s Nakia, as played by the lovely Zoe Kravitz) flipping her braids, and Malcom writing his college essay on “It Was a Good Day” by Ice Cube. There’s even flat tops and a Walkman.
The score and soundtrack features 90s classics like Nas’s ‘The World Is Yours’, A Tribe Called Quest’s ‘Scenario’ and Public Enemy’s ‘Rebel Without a Cause’.
The Costume Designer
The man behind the dope outfits in the movie is costume designer Patrik Milani. He’s been responsible for the costume designs on the throwaway movies Less Than Zero and The Key, but also a stack of high end commercials and fashion shoots.
He credits Pharrell Williams, one of the executive producers, for giving him a bit more cash to play with for his costume budget, and to get a real feel for the style of the characters began by getting his creep on and following a lot of Californian teens on Instagram, searching hashtags like #Inglewood, #InglewoodProm and #InglewoodHigh.
He also wanted to incorporate lots of local brands so sourced labels like Undefeated, Crooks & Castles and the Hundreds and a brand out of San Fran called Huf. There’s also vintage everything for the central trio which he found in LA thrift shops, like one on Melrose, Ebay purchases, and even vintage Adidas provided for the shoot by the brand itself.
Patrick describes dressing Dom as easy, with A$AP bring a lot of his own gear to set to wear. It ends up being a mixture of his clothes and what was in the movie wardrobe. There’s longline tees, bandanas and plenty of bling. Dom is straight street style, with black tees, black jeans and backwards black snapbacks.
The rest of Dom’s gang is the same: classic street style of 2015 with tight black jeans a black tall tee and chains on chains on chains.
Favourite Quote: “Yo, man. I be seein’ you and your little friends with y’all flattops and MC Hammer pants, riding around in this shit, looking like y’all came out of a DeLorean or some shit.”
Malcolm
The first thing that you notice about Malcolm’s style is that it’s nerdy 90s (aka 2015 hipster): he wears his shirts buttoned up all the way to the top, and his clothes have that tight fit. There’s also a lot of acid wash denim, vintage letterman jackets, preppy looking shirts, chinos, camouflage backpacks, puffy jackets and the all important Air Jordan 11’s. The dude has one killer flat top too.
Favourite Quote: “I have my Harvard interview tomorrow. We’re not going to a drug dealer’s birthday party…”
Jib who is played by Tony Revolori (The Grand Budapest Hotel) is definitely the most street of the three. His dress sense is more late 80’s – early 90’s gangsta rap – like the fashion of N.W.A.
Baggier jeans, wearing his snapbacks on back to front, zipper hoodies, oversized sweatshirts, Dickies, plaid or flannel shirts, hip hop tees like Run DMC and bucket hats are Jib’s staples.
Throughout most of the movie though Jib is rocking a black return to the kings tee, black snapback and gold chain necklace.
Favourite Quote: “All I wanna do is a zoom, zoom, zoom and a boom boom.”
Diggy
Although she’s sometimes mistaken for a boy (see: the club scene where a boob flash to the
bouncers is required), Diggy usually has a touch of femininity about the way that she’s dressed.
Patrick likens it to Aaliyah’s early masculine but still sexy style, and reminds us a lot of TLC: baggy jeans and jerseys but then a midriff here and there. He wanted her (and some of the other players) in Cross Colours so spent many nights up on Ebay bidding for vintage clothing.
Some of our favourite items out of Diggy’s wardrobe besides her large collection of throwback snapbacks are her overalls, yellow pants, vintage 84 Adidas tees and her oversized sports jackets.
Favourite Quote: “All we gotta do is find the white people, go to Coachella, Lollapalooza.”
Of course it wouldn’t be right not to give a mention to Blake Anderson’s character Will who, not surprisingly looks like he is just wearing clothes from his own wardrobe. Brightly coloured clothing, tie dye and even a pretty outrageous mexican style poncho are all worn at times, unfortunately no appearance of his workaholics bear coat though.
We hope you enjoyed the clothing and outfits in the movie Dope as much as we did. Please let us know in the comments if you need a hand tracking down a particular piece or just want to let us know who’s style you were feeling the most.
