If your appetite for 1990s fashion gossip wasn’t sated by the first three episodes of the six-part docuseries In Vogue: The 90s, worry not; the back half of the season just hit Hulu, and there’s plenty more supermodel intrigue, designer drama, thoughtful celebrity reflection, and dazzling couture in store.
Below, five key takeaways from the show’s final batch of episodes:
Sex and the City’s fashion impact was massive
It might be difficult to believe now, but during Sex and the City’s early seasons, legendary costume designer Patricia Field scrambled to get designers to lend her items for Carrie Bradshaw co. to wear on the show. All that changed when Fendi sent along Carrie’s now-signature purple sparkly baguette—you know, the one stolen by a mugger (along with her Manolo Blahniks) in Season 3, Episode 17. “When she carried the Fendi baguette, that took off,” recalls Vogue’s Tonne Goodman on the docuseries. “It’s one of those miracles of suggestion—that that was the bag to have. She put it on the map.” (Victoria Beckham even lusted after one!)
Harlem fashion legend Dapper Dan’s store was regularly raided by the police
“They confiscated everything I had. All my machines, all the fabrics,” recalls Dapper Dan of seeing his eponymous boutique regularly raided by New York police once he’d achieved a level of notoriety among celebrities including Mike Tyson, Salt-N-Pepa, LL Cool J, and Jay-Z. “Unfortunately, they had to shut him down to set an example to the industry that you can’t just pick up our logos and that’ll be OK,” recalls Edward Enninful—to which Dapper Dan offers quite the rejoinder. “I say this with perfect clarity. I didn’t knock y’all off. I knocked y’all up.”
The early ’90s weren’t so kind to Calvin Klein
Although Calvin Klein’s sensual, minimalist aesthetic and unisex fragrance CK One has come to be indelibly associated with the pre-Y2K era, the designer didn’t thrive professionally at the start of the decade. “In the early ’90s, Calvin had almost gone out of business,” reports Enninful, with Goodman noting that “he didn’t just bounce back, he went even bigger…Calvin Klein represented American fashion, point-blank.” See what can happen when you’re not afraid to embrace the taboo?
All the ’90s models had a crush on Jenny Shimizu
“I loved Jenny, she was just the coolest. She said what she wanted, she wore what she wanted, she was just her, and she could get any girl. The whole agency!” recalls Kate Moss of iconic queer ’90s Calvin Klein model Jenny Shimizu. Shimizu, who became the first Asian model to walk for Prada in 1993, also appears in the docuseries herself, noting that when she was first scouted, Klein didn’t ask her to grow out her hair or hide her interest in cars and trucks (she’d previously worked as a mechanic). “Calvin was like, ‘You walk how you want to walk, we know your hair’s going to be short, this is how we’re going to introduce you,’” remembers Shimizu.
Helmut Lang was arguably the pioneering Internet-age fashion designer
Did you know that Austrian designer Helmut Lang was the first person to livestream a fashion show back in 1998? What a treat to get a peek at the now-hilariously-primitive-looking early Web efforts of major fashion brands, including Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, and Nicole Miller. (Thank God we have the Vogue app now!)
