CARRI MUNDANE - CASSETTE PLAYA

Carri Mundane is an English Fashion Designer working in London on her own label 'Cassette Playa'. She is a menswear designer but has also created clothes for women. Being a very ‘street’ designer, her work relates extremely well to the old school hip-hop subculture. Her design detail consists highly of intricate, repetitive patterns and prints which are a definite factor of clothing in the nineties, particularly west coast USA. Will Smith style is a typical example of how her work could be seen as a more current version of the funky, printed, baggy fashion as seen on ‘The Fresh Prince of Bell Air’. Typical garment styles have been seen within some of Carri’s collections such as oversized shirts and oversized shorts. Typical factors of these garments are size and length. The shorts often come beneath the knee and are of a simple loose shape. The clothes which Carri wears herself are often her own designs. She usually sports baggy T-shirts with funky printed fabric of an exciting range of bright colours, a classic TLC old school look which has been adapted to Carri’s style with her own design aesthetic. Her garments are clearly casual garments but also appear to be slightly glamorous because of the silky, rich fabrics used. Another feature of her garments which resemble the trends of eighties and nineties hip-hop are baseball and bomber jackets. Throughout almost all of her collections there is a different design of one of these style jackets. Some of them are usually printed, others are plain, however, they always have something quirky about them, whether it’s a binding on the edge of pockets or seams which are a contrasting colour, or an exciting print. Throughout her career she has gained lots of experience within the urban and street area of the fashion scene, working with Billionaire Boys Club, Bape and designing and styling for stars such M.I.A. These brands and M.I.A are all heavily part of the street fashion scene and have particularly old school influences. They seem like a perfect match for Carri Mundane, as the garments and designs she creates reflect some of their creations and particularly M.I.A’s style.



As well as the design and shape of garments reflecting the style of eighties and nineties hip-hop, Carri mundane mainly uses trainers as the shoes to go with her designs. She has worked in collaboration with Nike and their ‘Dunk’ trainer which alongside Air forces and Air Jordans, are one of the main style trainers which were worn and extremely popular within the eighties and nineties eras in the USA.






To sum up Carri Mundane’s work in relation to eighties and nineties hip-hop it is simply the original shape baseball jackets, oversized garments and extreme and colourful prints incorporated with nineties nu rave which truly reflect these eras and how they have been brought into the fashion of today.