Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
Pharrell, the style icon, is the new creative director of menswear at Louis Vuitton, and I wonder what sorts of things he’ll create for them. The answer may lie in the style choices he’s been making for years.
Pharrell is nothing if not the ultimate kidult. Kidult is a term fashion and culture people have long use to describe someone, usually an adult male, who has a strong childlike quality. Perhaps he’s a grownup who’s deeply into toys and items that bring up a nostalgia for his youth. Pharrell definitely seems like someone who’s in touch with his inner teenage skater boy and is unafraid to be deeply in touch with him. We see this in the bright, bold, vibrant colors he gravitates toward in his personal style and in the items he’s created for Adidas like his Human Race sneakers.
A lot of his work with the legendary Japanese designer Nigo on Billionaire Boys Club also evokes the sense of a kidult. There’s often a whimsical nature to Pharrell’s design aesthetic. I would expect his Vuitton to seem playful perhaps in the way that the work of his friend, the legendary visual artist Takashi Murakami, also seems playful though meant for adults. Some of Pharrell’s exuberant color play could stem from him having synesthesia, a mental condition where you experience one of the five senses and then have an involutary response from one of the others. For Pharrell, in his mind, he experiences music as colors. He once told Psychology Today: “For every color, there is a sound, a vibration, a part of the human body, a number, a musical note.” I would expect his Vuitton to be whimsical, colorful, and playful with designs and things that take us back to childhood.
He’s also part of the modern movement that’s breaking…
Read the full article here
