Ever since I got hooked on Hip Hop through Wu Tang at age 11, I also became, as many teens/preteens did (they don't anymore, spoilt little fucks) aware of how I looked with regards to clothing and, more importantly, how I wanted to look. For many years I begged my old dear for a Tommy Hilfiger sailing jacket and Air Jordans, and was denied every time. Looking back it was a good thing; if I ever have kids and they start demanding £300 jackets and £100 kicks i'll just put them up for adoption. However, a compromise was made, and my needs were met to a certain extent.
Somewhere back in The Piranha Tank I have a stack of old Source magazines from the mid nineties, most of which I mainly kept for the hilarious No Limit adverts and associated junk. However, when Sadat X dropped 'Wild Cowboys' in '96 he was also involved in a Helly Hansen marketing campaign; they obviously saw what was happening with Hilfiger, Timberland and them and wanted to get involved. If i'm not mistaken, Xzibit is also rocking a Helly in the 'Paparazzi' video too.
Anyway, walking through Falmouth one day, I spied a sailing shop that sold Helly's and found them to be a pretty reasonable price, around 60 quid if i remember correctly. I needed a new jacket so I scraped up whatever P i had and ma dukes covered the rest. Of course I still have it, along with many other items from a bygone age, but you'll have to wait for the rest. I still don't know to this day why I chose yellow, though; not exactly a subtle colour, but handy if i ever got thrown overboard on a crab fishing expedition (I didn't).
Peep -
I copped a Helly jacket much like the Xzhbit Paparazzi ones from cash converters and rocked it for years... it was a ladies jacket... but nobody knew... nobody knew.
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