That Gucci Drip? Marx Would Call It Exploitation!

 

The Gucci x Dapper Dan “Made in Harlem” video may seem like a celebration of culture and creativity, but from a Marxist lens, it ultimately reinforces capitalist exploitation.
The video presents a glamorous partnership between a Black Harlem legend and a global fashion powerhouse. On the surface, this seems empowering. However, the deeper structural realities it obscures labour, class, and production tell a different story. What emerges is a classic case of representation without redistribution, a re-branding of oppression as opportunity.

A Marxist critique begins by asking: whose labour made this collaboration possible?
While the video centers Dapper Dan as the face of the campaign and features models dressed in luxurious outfits, it erases the actual workers who produced these goods. We do not see the factory workers in Italy or Asia, the tailors sewing garments, nor the African farmers growing cotton or rearing livestock for leather. Instead, the spotlight is on those at the end of the value chain, the face of the brand, not the hands.
This invisibility of labour reinforces the capitalist logic where the working class is made absent, even though they are essential to the production of wealth. Their absence in the video shows how capitalism hides its exploitative mechanisms under the glitter of luxury.

Commodity fetishism is central to the video’s visual language, transforming human labour into objects of desire. There are numerous slow-motion shots of Gucci monogrammed jackets, fur-lined coats, gold chains, and branded sunglasses. The camera lingers on these items as if they possess value in themselves, rather than as results of human labour. Harlem, too, is transformed into a fetish, not a lived community but an aesthetic background for fashion.
This is the essence of fetishism: we are seduced by the product but made blind to the social relations behind it. The viewer is taught to admire luxury items and urban coolness, without questioning how those things came to be, or who is excluded from enjoying them.

The visibility of characters in the video reflects a deeply unequal class structure, disguised as diversity. Dapper Dan gets a prominent share of screen time, positioned as a success story of Black excellence. The models, mostly Black, also feature heavily but remain silent and passive. Stylists and directors, likely wealthier and more powerful  appear briefly but clearly direct the action. Meanwhile, the actual garment workers, assistants, and logistics personnel are entirely invisible. This hierarchy of screen presence mirrors the capitalist hierarchy of value, where those who produce the goods are hidden, and those who consume or symbolise them are glorified. Representation is selectively distributed to give the illusion of inclusion, while maintaining class inequality.

The video promotes an ideology that normalises capitalism by framing success as personal rather than structural. Taglines like “Made in Harlem” suggest a grassroots origin story, while Dapper Dan’s presence implies that hard work and style can lead to upward mobility. The narrative frames him as someone who “made it” by entering the system that once excluded him. However, this story individualizes success and ignores broader social and economic conditions that keep most people in Harlem and across the Global South locked out of luxury.
This kind of ideology is what Marxists call false consciousness: it persuades people to believe in the fairness of a system designed to exploit them. By turning Dapper Dan’s success into a marketing campaign, Gucci is not transforming the system; it is simply profiting from the appearance of change.

Contradictions in the video expose moments where the capitalist fantasy begins to unravel. One scene shows a model slouched between takes, visibly disinterested, a moment of human boredom cutting through the glamour. Another moment is when Dapper Dan says, “They didn’t want us, but now they need us,” revealing an underlying tension. The collaboration is not about equality but strategic absorption. Harlem is shown with aesthetic polish but stripped of its real social dynamics, hinting at cultural appropriation more than empowerment.
These glitches in the narrative are cracks in the ideological facade. They reveal the unresolved conflict between the capitalist system’s need to modify Black culture and its refusal to challenge the power structures that oppress Black people globally.

By examining the relationship between Harlem and Gucci, we uncover how capitalism rebrands resistance as trend. Historically, Harlem has been a site of Black resistance, creativity, and working-class struggle. Dapper Dan’s original work was rebellious, remixing white European fashion logos into a new Black vernacular. Now, that same energy is packaged, sanitized, and sold back to consumers at premium prices. The barbershop, a community centrepiece, becomes a styled set. The street becomes a catwalk. Harlem itself becomes an accessory.
This transformation shows how capitalism absorbs opposition, flattens its edges, and turns it into a commodity maintaining power while pretending to share it.

The real contradiction lies in the gap between appearance and reality, empowerment and exploitation. While Gucci claims to honour Harlem and uplift Dapper Dan, the economic structure remains untouched. Profits still flow upward. The garment workers remain underpaid. The elite still control the means of production. The collaboration does not decolonise fashion  it recolonises culture through the lens of capitalism.
This contradiction is important: even as more Black and Brown faces appear in campaigns, the underlying machinery remains built on the same global inequalities.

From a Marxist perspective, the Gucci x Dapper Dan campaign functions as a tool of ideological control, not liberation. It distracts from class struggle with style, turns symbols of resistance into tokens of luxury, and replaces collective liberation with individual aspiration. The message is: you can make it, if you’re chosen, if you’re marketable, if you’re exceptional. For the masses? Stay dreaming.
In doing so, it reinforces a deeply unequal system while pretending to celebrate diversity.

In conclusion, the Gucci x Dapper Dan “Made in Harlem” video, though visually stunning and culturally rich, ultimately serves capitalist interests by masking exploitation with representation.
Labour is erased, luxury is fetishised, and class hierarchy is disguised as cultural celebration. Through strategic visibility, ideological narratives, and aesthetic appropriation, the campaign transforms Harlem’s radical history into a high-fashion accessory.

 In Nigerian terms, “Dem say ‘Made in Harlem’, but who really dey cash out? The tailor or the tag?”