Hip hop clothing is a unique style of dress that originated from African American youth. The youth of this ethnic group started to adopt certain dress styles in the various cities of the United States. The new styles of dresses were differently named as hip hop clothes, streetwear, and urban apparel.

The major cities in which these changes started occurring were New York, Philadelphia, the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, Miami, Chicago, Detroit, Atlanta, Memphis, and Jersey City but the new culture spread to other cities also quite fast. Each city provided its own distinct contributions to the overall hip hop clothes style that had emerged and established itself as a typical clothing style all over the world. In spite of the specific ethnic origin by the African-American youth, the global younger generation had easily adopted this new style of dress. The hip hop clothes had become a kind of fashion statement for the modern youth.

The hip hop clothes became the trend in the early 1980s, with bright color tracksuits, leather and sheepskin bomber jackets, and Clarks Shoes starting this new streetwear trend. The haircuts also underwent a change, with Jheri curl and hi-top fade, the most famous among them. The other accessories to this new trend of urban apparel were large eyeglasses, designer name plates and name belts, bucket hats, and multiple rings.

Heavy gold jewelry also became part of the new scene, which continues even today. Jewelry worn by men was dominated by heavy gold chains or bracelets and women preferred large gold earrings as the fashion jewelry to match hip hop clothes. Wearing prominent gold necklaces had been adopted by both men and women, following the example set by male performers like Big Daddy Kane and Kurtis Blow, as well as female rap singers such as rap group Salt-N-Pepa and singer Roxanne Shante.

The latest changes in the hip hop clothes trend had brought about a separation of the urban apparel between men and women. While women also wore the same baggy pants as men in the beginning, the present crop of women had switched over to high fashion, glamorous, and more feminine streetwear, such as the baby phat fashion line of Kimora Lee Simmons, made popular by Foxy Brown and Lil Kim. Many other younger women prefer conservative hip hop clothes that are distinctly feminine.