decoding Gucci x Dapper Dan made in Harlem A:W '18-‘19 BTS for Numero Homme magazine Stuart Hall's method.(negotiated)

    Gucci's collaboration with Harlem designer Dapper Dan is not only a fusion of fashion—it's a cultural movement. In the short film "Made in Harlem", we are taken into the realm of Harlem renaissance, Black excellence, and luxury recontextualization. In order to decode the video based on Stuart Hall's Encoding/Decoding model with a negotiated reading, we must examine how meaning is encoded by the producers (Gucci and Dapper Dan), how it is decoded by the audience, and how the audience can accept, resist, or reinterpret the messages.The essence of Hall's model is that communication is not a fixed one-way transmission. Meaning is not simply coded in a message by a sender and received passively by a receiver. Instead, meaning is negotiated between them, according to ideology, context, and lived experience. Negotiated reading involves accepting some parts of the intended (dominant) message and, simultaneously, challenging or reinterpreting others. Reading Made in Harlem in this way, we can appreciate how rich and complicated this video actually is. 

    From a filmic perspective, Made in Harlem is rich in imagery, symbolism, and visual storytelling. Shot on a Sony a6500, the documentary-like film stock creates a sense of immediacy and authenticity. The movie begins with street life in Harlem, shops, murals, and Dapper Dan's workshop. We see models walking along the streets wearing Gucci pieces inspired by 1980s hip-hop fashion puffed sleeves, oversized glasses, and massive logos. These pieces evoke Dapper Dan's initial bootleg fashion of the 1980s, wherein he famously reinterpreted high-end brand logos in unauthorized methods by the brand themselves. This superimposition of old and new forms the encoded message: Gucci is paying tribute to Dapper Dan and Harlem culture. The affect is celebratory, reverent, and inclusive. The video is framed to depict the collaboration as a redemptive arc what was previously outlawed is now celebrated by those very institutions that previously shunned it. 

    To understand the negotiation of meaning, we need to look at the social context in which the video is both created and received. Dapper Dan's fashion origins are Harlem, where his unauthorized use of high end logos during the '80s was both subversion and creativity. Fashion establishment (Gucci included) ostracized him back then. Jump forward to 2018, and Gucci, which had been accused of appropriating Dapper Dan's design from one of their lines, partners with him officially financially supporting the reopening of his atelier and producing joint lines.In this context, viewers familiar with Dapper Dan’s history may feel a tension: Is Gucci’s partnership a genuine act of respect and reparation, or a strategic move to appropriate Black cultural capital after criticism? For many Black viewers, especially those from Harlem or with knowledge of fashion history, the collaboration is both validating and suspicious. This is where the negotiated reading emerges. 

    At a negotiating level, we can explain the video as follows: Alignment with the encoded message: the spectator knows that Gucci is validating and accrediting Dapper Dan's creative genius. The imagery presents empowerment African American models courageously wear luxury fashion in Harlem. Legend and visionary status are built for Dapper Dan, validating his case in redefining luxury fashion. His voice, demeanor, and site (the atelier) are positioned in the forefront he is not only regarded, he is projected. Criticique of the coded message: But there will be questions from audiences about power dynamics. Who's controlling the story Dapper Dan or Gucci? While the collaboration is described as such, Gucci, coincidentally, is the multinational luxury behemoth. They fund, distribute, and provide context for the message. Dapper Dan's former rebellious style now becomes part of a luxury brand playbook. This co-optation of formerly outsider fashion by this brand is legible as co-optation. The question the audience asks is: Is it rebranding or redemption? This negotiation illustrates how audiences receive some dominant meanings (respect, elevation, collaboration) but not others (commodification of Blackness, corporate takeover). 

    Stuart Hall maintained the authority of representation in shaping cultural identity. Harlem is not only a location here; it is a person. Residents, murals, stores, and streets all help substantiate Harlem as a space of creativity, strength, and flair. There is an incredibly strong sense of space, community, and memory. The models in the video are all Black wear a blend of streetwear and luxury. This mode of dressing takes back control over representation. Even within this appreciation, however, a consumer might ask herself: is this a transitory nod to Harlem, or an enduring commitment to fashion diversity? A negotiated reader might hope so but with hesitation. 

    On the consumer level, the audience is complicated. On the one hand, Gucci is speaking to fashion consumers who value cultural authenticity. But they are also speaking to a younger, more socially conscious consumer that expects brands to own up to past mistakes. The negotiated audience might appreciate Gucci’s efforts but still see them as incomplete. Dapper Dan’s name is on the door, but how much profit and creative control does he hold? To what extent are Harlem youth benefiting from this partnership? Is this a spotlight moment or a systemic shift? 
The negotiated viewer doesn’t reject the message entirely. Instead, they engage critically, balancing appreciation with interrogation. 

    Interpellation, as predicted by Hall's theory, is how individuals are being "hailed" or addressed by ideology. The video in this instance is hailing the viewer as culturally conscious, socially aware, and respectful of Black greatness. It is summoning the viewer to be with Gucci in honoring a heritage once forgotten. But a negotiated reading resists total ideological capture. Although the audience can enjoy the spectacle and sanction the collaboration, they remember fashion's history of marginalization and demand more than performative allyship. 

    Lastly, viewing the Gucci x Dapper Dan: Made in Harlem video via Stuart Hall's Encoding/Decoding model, a negotiated mode, locates a rich tension between celebration and criticism. While the encoded message invites us to consider this collaboration as a triumphous mingling of cultures, the negotiated reading gains hold and turns that message. In line with TSC, we not only look at the video itself but also those social, cultural, and ideological forces that frame it. Audiences do not passively receive media texts. They bring with them their lived experience, history, and critical consciousness. And what you have here is not rejection or passive reception but knowing, reflective negotiation.