In a transfer that may shake up the posh menswear panorama, and open a brand new period of superstar trend designers, Pharrell Williams is in talks to take over Louis Vuitton Males’s, in keeping with a Wall Road Journal report. The transfer would set up the worldwide superstar and trend aficionado within the job held by Virgil Abloh earlier than his demise in late 2021.
Pharrell has a protracted historical past of collaborating with luxurious manufacturers, together with Louis Vuitton. In 2007, he collaborated with then-Vuitton inventive director Marc Jacobs on a line of sun shades, which have been re-issued by Abloh—a Pharrell buddy and collaborator—2018. Pharrell has additionally designed splashy collaborations with Chanel and Moncler, which can unveil a brand new Pharrell-branded assortment this weekend in London. He additionally has a longstanding partnership with Adidas Originals and lately launched a skincare line, Humanrace.
Pharrell has lengthy articulated a hyper-modern sense of favor that now resonates deeply with a brand new technology of trend followers. “While you hearken to your self and also you’re snug in who you might be, you put on what you are feeling like suits and appears proper on you. And that is it,” he informed GQ in 2019, when he fronted the New Masculinity Problem sporting a ballgown puffer. Twenty years in the past, because the frontman of N.E.R.D., he broke the mildew of hip-hop type by integrating parts of skateboarder-wear. His evolving sensibility finally predicted the rise of gender-neutral clothes when he embraced womenswear designs by then-Céline inventive director Phoebe Philo, and he grew to become the primary man to look in a Chanel advert in 2017.
The ties between Pharrell and LVMH have seemingly tightened in recent times. LVMH put in Pharrell’s inventive consigliere, the Japanese producer and designer Nigo, on the helm of Kenzo in 2021. Pharrell and Nigo’s intertwined careers return to the early-2000s, when the duo based the deeply influential streetwear model Billionaire Boys Membership, and Pharrell is now a daily entrance row presence at Kenzo reveals. He has additionally lately been sporting customized diamond-encrusted shades he designed with Tiffany & Co., LVMH’s newest luxurious model acquisition.
Putting in Pharrell at Louis Vuitton Males’s can be the denouement of the LVMH technique to show its luxurious manufacturers into international pop cultural actions. Louis Vuitton’s collaboration with Yayoi Kusama has seen cities around the globe blanketed within the Japanese designer’s polka dots, and the newest Louis Vuitton Males’s present featured a Rosalía efficiency that had little to do with the garments, however all the things to do with creating a large social media second. That assortment featured items guest-designed by Colm Dillane of KidSuper, which put Dillane within the pole place to snag the inventive director gig. However LVMH is maybe pondering larger, and using a turnaround technique much like the one employed at Tiffany. LVMH’s re-launch of Tiffany started with a Beyoncé- and Jay-Z-fronted marketing campaign, and has since gone on to incorporate Pharrell himself. When requested by WWD in regards to the customized diamond sun shades, Pharrell hinted that they have been merely the primary have a look at a long-term partnership. “Tiffany and I are engaged,” he informed WWD, stating that he and the NYC-based jeweler had “many issues” within the works.
Has he already been promoted? Representatives for Pharrell and Louis Vuitton didn’t return request for remark, however an ecstatic Instagram Story posted by Pharrell buddy Pusha-T stated all of it: that is (most likely) taking place, and it’s undoubtedly a giant deal.
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