Runway debuts don’t get much bigger than Pharrell’s first Louis Vuitton collection.
If you expected mere spectacle, you underestimated Pharrell: the LV artistic director took over Paris’ historic Pont Neuf bridge with a backup band, gospel choir, and a veritable army of of models draped in Pharrell’s new LV menswear designs.
Pharrell’s Louis Vuitton show wasn’t just a blow-out event, it was an almost unfair beginning to a fairly stacked Fashion Week. How can the other luxury labels scheduled to present in the following days ever hope to compare?
That’s kinda the point, though: Pharrell’s LV is destined to be a series of explosive headline grabs, where the you-gotta-see-this factor outweighs all else. That ain’t a diss, by the way.
Chew on this: though Pharrell’s new Louis Vuitton clothes were ostensibly the runway’s main event, they’re almost predisposed to play second fiddle to the sheer display of star power.
That is to say, Beyoncé, JAY-Z, Rihanna, A$AP Rocky, Lewis Hamilton, and Takashi Murakami all sat front row while Pharrell’s musical peers, ranging from Dave to a reunited Clipse (Pusha T and Malice), strode the makeshift runway.
If you can get past the fact that Queen Bey actually deigned to attend a runway show for the first time in years, you’ve still got some mighty cool clothes on hand.
Pharrell’s Louis Vuitton debut is packed with thoughtful references to his own legacy, wild statement pieces, ingenious new handbags (a literal Louis Vuitton shopper?!), and some crazy footwear that’s destined to be the stuff of red carpet legend.
It’s worth considering the context to get a bird’s-eye view of the whole thing.
Pharrell’s first Louis Vuitton collection is a mission statement for the future and several surrounding context clues — some not even directly related to the show itself — give us an idea of what to expect from the future of Pharrell’s LV.
To start, the new Louis Vuitton menswear collection was foretold by (who else?) Pharrell himself, who’s been…
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