Fashion tunes in but doesn't drop out

COURTESY NEWSMAKERS This Hill House is haunted by fashion

A cultural phenomenon that began with Run DMC's seminal classic "My Adidas" has now transmogrified into KoRn's abominable hit "A.D.I.D.A.S." One would swear that the most important event on the music channel VH1-formerly a schlock factory and currently better than MTV-is the annual Fashion Awards. It has, in fact, become quite difficult to tell the difference between the cover of a fashion magazine and that of a music magazine. The miscegenation of Lauryn Hill's music-cum-fashionista career is a vivid example of the blurring between fashion and music characterizing pop culture today. Ms. Hill, if you don't already know her, currently graces the cover of Harper's Bazaar with an all-knowing smile and vertiginous red leather boots by Marc Jacobs for Louis Vuitton. Never mind her music—see L-Boogie do some incredibly chic charity work with multi-ethnic inner-city ragamuffins...all the while wearing Sky Dia-volina platforms and hot pants by Xuly Bet. For further proof of Hill's omnipotence, consult Vogue's special Music & Fashion insert. Not only is the sagacious rapstress on the cover but also, lest you forget, both Levi's and Giorgio Armani sponsor her current musical tour.

The proliferation of Hill-haute is only a small illustration. The reciprocal influence of both cultural institutions is most easily and directly seen in the lyrics and visuals of many of today's top artists, with occasional unfortunate results. From the "e:" logo of the band "everything" to the stylized "b" of Icelandic diva Björk, musicians are packaged and recognized much like the interlocking "C"s of Chanel and the inverted "G"s of Gucci. The disenchanted white middle American snaps up the backwards scrawled "R" of Korn faster than Ralph Lauren's Polo pony. Musicians often utilize fashionable logos and lyrics to make social statements, to further commodify themselves, and to be generally annoying.

The latter characteristic can be seen in one of this summer's biggest and worst hits (apparently among people who cannot be bothered to change the station), "Summer Girls," by the Staten Island mall trash group known as LFO. The media would have you believe that this song's most striking aspect is not its sixth-grade lyrical wit, teeny-bop pandering, atrocious Vanilla Ice-esque talk/rap style, or the genetic mishap that created LFO's vomitous visages. Now where did we put those Grammys?

As if to perpetuate the general status quo, the popular media conveniently forgets that rappers and hip-hoppers from Run DMC to Notorious B.I.G. to Foxy Brown have been label dropping since the dawn of time. As if LFO's "I like girls that wear Abercrombie & Fitch" is anywhere near the brilliance of Lil' Kim's "My flow's first class and yours is Coach like the bag, the Prada mama, my girls rock Chanel and smoke mad marijuana," or "Admiring my shoes by Gucci, I'll be eatin' sushi, playing with my coochie." You deserve all the props you can get if you can rhyme a luxury fashion house with genitalia, in my opinion.

Both fashion and music play a large part in the preposterous cult of celebrity in which America revels. Forget musical talent; what pop and rock stars wear can make or break their career in more ways than one. Designer sponsorship provides both financial and stylistic backing, as well as prominent advertising for all involved. Acts such as Sheryl Crow, the Rolling Stones, and 98[[ordmasculine]] are all using Tommy Hilfiger. Pop's lumpy Lolita, Britney Spears, only pours her silicon chest and jelly belly into Hilfiger's wares. Rappers from Jay-Z to the late B.I.G. prominently don the red and green stripes of Gucci and the medusa heads of Versace. Such '90s label-flashing reflects a fashion philosophy diametrically opposed to the rap gear of the '80s—a subversive slap of ghetto-fabulous gold trunk jewelry and obnoxiously fake Gucci t-shirts.

This conscious stylistic visibility, then, has worked against both the images and philosophies of many musicians. Hip hop culture has certainly sacrificed a modicum of creativity and legitimacy in order to bow before the fashion gods-I seem to recall the Rolling Stones being able to conduct a musical tour without Hilfiger back in the day.

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