Where do the pimps shop for gear in your hood?
- Thread starter Big_Chan
- Start date
LOL! That was crazy.
It was a real chain of stores in this area and Vic Reeves is from around here, anyone of a "certain" age (myself included) had at least one pair of Geordie Jeans...
It was a real chain of stores in this area and Vic Reeves is from around here, anyone of a "certain" age (myself included) had at least one pair of Geordie Jeans...
Back when I lived in Japan, my friend used to be one of those street recruiters for a pimp shop in Shibuya, Tokyo.
The owner was this small 40 year old dude, that dressed exactly like in the video at the top.
He walked with a cane, long hair in a pony tail, and facial hair. Always rocking one of those rounded hats with the turn up brim.
The store was decked out in dark wood and crushed velvet. Glass cases etc. Sure it cost a fortune, but I only went there once.
The owner was this small 40 year old dude, that dressed exactly like in the video at the top.
He walked with a cane, long hair in a pony tail, and facial hair. Always rocking one of those rounded hats with the turn up brim.
The store was decked out in dark wood and crushed velvet. Glass cases etc. Sure it cost a fortune, but I only went there once.
There used to be a shop on 92nd and Broadway when I was growing up, I think it was called Charivari. It was all gators and purple Versace suits.
My mom used to always wonder how it stayed in business, seemed so out of place on the West Side at that time.
One time coming home from school, mad people gathered out front, taking pictures through the glass. Mike Tyson was in there, buying a grip of suits.
It's changed a lot over the years, but it's still a clothing spot. I think they sell wack sneakers there now.
My mom used to always wonder how it stayed in business, seemed so out of place on the West Side at that time.
One time coming home from school, mad people gathered out front, taking pictures through the glass. Mike Tyson was in there, buying a grip of suits.
It's changed a lot over the years, but it's still a clothing spot. I think they sell wack sneakers there now.
Wow! Sounds great! Do you have any pictures of the owner and the shop?
Nah I wish I did, and I don't remember what the shop is called. I know exactly where it was in Shibuya so I might be able to find something if I look online.
I have a feeling its not a one of a kind shop in Japan, but that a scene for it exists. It was a bit surreal though.
Oh shit. I used to live next door to a dude who was a steady Roberto's customer, and he used to wear these fur-brimmed hats. Not full-on fur hats, mind you: these were just regular porkpie/fedora jernts that happened to have fur brims. Enquiring minds want to know if the one pickwick33 has it like that.
In any event, I like to imagine pickwick hitting up Roberto's (a spot, by the way, that routinely tops lists of Chicago's Ugliest Buildings; until recently, the upper floor of their exterior had a massive color portrait of Roberto himself that the sun had roasted and peeled into straight ghoulishness, making it look kinda like a cross between a fallen Eddie Kane and one of those Visible Man kits) for a shirt, but getting upsold into a short set and some gators and walking out with a look of how-did-I-get-here? bewilderment.
There used to be a place out by here called Sophisticated Themes where steppers (and presumably pimps) got 'fitted, but I think it got replaced by some weird evangelical hair spot.
I may have talked about this previously, but a while back I saw on public-access tv a show consisting of a lengthy interview/conversation between the show's host and the proprietor of one of Chicago's bigger Leroy's-type operations, the name of which regrettably escapes me. I recognized the host as a dude who usually discusses numerology and colonics and sometimes appears on-air in only a loincloth and a turban, but for this occasion he was rocking a glowing white button up, a very involved brocade vest, and a fez whose admitted stylishness did not entirely mitigate the fact that it was like two feet tall. Towering as it was, though, I won't front: dude was wearing it. His guest, the owner dude, was lounging imperially in some undoubtedly top-of-the-line zoot, and was going on endlessly about how his shop was pushing the boundaries, not like the rest of these crumbs, and was the only place truly putting Chicago menswear on the world stage. "You have to understand: You have a lot of these places with their Super 700s, their Super 800s, but my shop is the only place in Chicago--the only place, brother--and one of very few in the country, even, where a man can get...[wait for it]...Super 5000s. That's right: a five-thousand thread count, brother..." Just ridiculous, over-the-top, vainglorious shit. After that went on for a while, he started trotting out dudes modelling his various marquee pieces, one of which had been designed by--and was being modelled by--this Wish Bone-looking guy named Boo-Boo. "And again, you have to understand: You see a lot of shops making suits that have, for example, seven groups of double buttons, maybe even five groups of triple buttons, but you will notice that this suit here has...[wait for it]...six groups of quadruple buttons. But you see, that's how we do it at my shop. That's...that's...[rolling his hands in the air in front of him, trying to conjure the right word for this kind of genius, finally exhaling and giving up]...Well, that's just Boo-Boo being Boo-Boo." And during the entire interview, at the bottom of the screen they kept flashing the words "THE GREAT MEETING OF THE MINDS HAS OCCURRED." Shit was like two hours long and I couldn't look away, not once.
Chicago's apparently got some shit. My man who knows about this kind of thing says that the only city that can hang with Chicago as far as this kind of gentleman's dressing is Atlanta. He says that Detroit used to could, but that they've fallen off a little, and now the only thing they're really excelling at is hair and shoes. I can neither confirm nor deny, though, as I stay busted, and thus have no horse in this race. I'm just telling you what he told me.
Nah, I'm FAIRLY tight with a dollar; nobody's gonna upsell me unless I was intending to buy it in the first place. But, they WILL get up in your grill trying to persuade you to buy this, that & the other thing...
You're pretty close to 47th St....IIRC, the shopping district around the el tracks were loaded down with these kind of pimpwear shops...
You know that modest park on State Street by the el tracks? Across the street from Harold Washington Library? If I'm not mistaken, in the sixties and seventies Smokey Joe's was located on that spot. They used to advertise on local black radio, as well as on Channel 2 at 2 AM during The Late Late Show. All the pimps used the shop there, and if you talk to any of the local soul groups of the time, they always used to get their matching suits there.
Even an early version of the band who became Chicago used to shop at that place. There's a story about how they were working some suburban bar gig. The owner walks up to one of the members and asks them to play a "belly-rubber" (slow song). So they then do "How Could I Be Such A Fool," by Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention. One member asks the others to start tearing off his Smokey Joe's suit one by one. Before they got to his draws, the band was fired on the spot. The next weekend, they got high, went to see Cream live, and pretty soon they changed their format and stopped wearing chitlin'-circuit suits on stage...
They were still going strong up until the mid-eighties, when downtown Chicago's reconstruction campaign slowly got rid of the funkier elements. But they had a good run there for years.
Yeah. Until the sneaker spot moved in, underneath the Metra over on 53rd there was this all this decades-old leftover signage alluding to "Big Jim Industries, Inc." and friend of mine says she remembers it as the kind of place you're talking about. I have a photo of the sign somewhere--I should get that shit silkscreened onto a blazer or something.
And while not strictly on-topic, this somehow seems pertinent:
Terry_Pluffmud told me a story one time about how Freddie Terrell's Soul Expedition got some leather, velvet-lined suits made, but the tailor messed up their order, leaving them instead with velvet suits with leather linings.
When you think about it, that's pretty ill.
I just now watched this. "Per-zazz" is my new shit.
Their seventies commercials were even wilder, with an announcer intoning "BUY IT TODAY! WEAR IT TONIGHT!" while "Roundabout" by Yes played in the background. I think the first place I heard (a) the expression "decked out", and (b) Django Reinhardt was in a National Clothes ad.
Krass Bros closed down years ago if i remember correctly... maybe close to ten years ago. Philly got a few nice pimp suit spots (and i've seen a few slick ass real life pimps walkin' around like it's still 1972 rockin' the loud-but-oh-so-coordinated vintage vines)... don't know if the Philly joints are messin' with that Seatown store though! LOL at these commercials, the vegetarian beans I'm eating right now almost came out my nose watching these schitts.
Oh shit. I used to live next door to a dude who was a steady Roberto's customer, and he used to wear these fur-brimmed hats. Not full-on fur hats, mind you: these were just regular porkpie/fedora jernts that happened to have fur brims. Enquiring minds want to know if the one pickwick33 has it like that.
In any event, I like to imagine pickwick hitting up Roberto's (a spot, by the way, that routinely tops lists of Chicago's Ugliest Buildings; until recently, the upper floor of their exterior had a massive color portrait of Roberto himself that the sun had roasted and peeled into straight ghoulishness, making it look kinda like a cross between a fallen Eddie Kane and one of those Visible Man kits) for a shirt, but getting upsold into a short set and some gators and walking out with a look of how-did-I-get-here? bewilderment.
There used to be a place out by here called Sophisticated Themes where steppers (and presumably pimps) got 'fitted, but I think it got replaced by some weird evangelical hair spot.
I may have talked about this previously, but a while back I saw on public-access tv a show consisting of a lengthy interview/conversation between the show's host and the proprietor of one of Chicago's bigger Leroy's-type operations, the name of which regrettably escapes me. I recognized the host as a dude who usually discusses numerology and colonics and sometimes appears on-air in only a loincloth and a turban, but for this occasion he was rocking a glowing white button up, a very involved brocade vest, and a fez whose admitted stylishness did not entirely mitigate the fact that it was like two feet tall. Towering as it was, though, I won't front: dude was wearing it. His guest, the owner dude, was lounging imperially in some undoubtedly top-of-the-line zoot, and was going on endlessly about how his shop was pushing the boundaries, not like the rest of these crumbs, and was the only place truly putting Chicago menswear on the world stage. "You have to understand: You have a lot of these places with their Super 700s, their Super 800s, but my shop is the only place in Chicago--the only place, brother--and one of very few in the country, even, where a man can get...[wait for it]...Super 5000s. That's right: a five-thousand thread count, brother..." Just ridiculous, over-the-top, vainglorious shit. After that went on for a while, he started trotting out dudes modelling his various marquee pieces, one of which had been designed by--and was being modelled by--this Wish Bone-looking guy named Boo-Boo. "And again, you have to understand: You see a lot of shops making suits that have, for example, seven groups of double buttons, maybe even five groups of triple buttons, but you will notice that this suit here has...[wait for it]...six groups of quadruple buttons. But you see, that's how we do it at my shop. That's...that's...[rolling his hands in the air in front of him, trying to conjure the right word for this kind of genius, finally exhaling and giving up]...Well, that's just Boo-Boo being Boo-Boo." And during the entire interview, at the bottom of the screen they kept flashing the words "THE GREAT MEETING OF THE MINDS HAS OCCURRED." Shit was like two hours long and I couldn't look away, not once.
Chicago's apparently got some shit. My man who knows about this kind of thing says that the only city that can hang with Chicago as far as this kind of gentleman's dressing is Atlanta. He says that Detroit used to could, but that they've fallen off a little, and now the only thing they're really excelling at is hair and shoes. I can neither confirm nor deny, though, as I stay busted, and thus have no horse in this race. I'm just telling you what he told me. applaud this man.
Krass Bros closed down years ago if i remember correctly... maybe close to ten years ago. Philly got a few nice pimp suit spots (and i've seen a few slick ass real life pimps walkin' around like it's still 1972 rockin' the loud-but-oh-so-coordinated vintage vines)... don't know if the Philly joints are messin' with that Seatown store though! LOL at these commercials, the vegetarian beans I'm eating right now almost came out my nose watching these schitts.
Phill! It's hard out here for a pimp in Seattle! Pimpin' ain't easy but somebody got to do it!!!!!
Krass Bros closed down years ago if i remember correctly... maybe close to ten years ago. Philly got a few nice pimp suit spots (and i've seen a few slick ass real life pimps walkin' around like it's still 1972 rockin' the loud-but-oh-so-coordinated vintage vines)... don't know if the Philly joints are messin' with that Seatown store though! LOL at these commercials, the vegetarian beans I'm eating right now almost came out my nose watching these schitts.
Phill! It's hard out here for a pimp in Seattle! Pimpin' ain't easy but somebody got to do it!!!!!
What up Big Pimp! Hey, have I ever told the story here on Soulstrut about how I was in an electric football league with some of the neighborhood pimps back when I was a kid? ROFL for dayz!!! Dudes would be playing their games then get dressed in their platform shoes and colorful suits to go out and get their pimp on all night!
