Pharrell’s first collection for Louis Vuitton as the creative fashion director had a star studded entrance with A Listers in the crowd and on the runway, some of my favourite photos from the event, I tried to find photos of Jay Z’s Jacket and set but can’t find any clear ones yet.
Pharrell Williams at Louis Vuitton: i have thoughts
I was pleasantly surprised by the collection and of course I love a spectacle but I just can't get past the celebrity of it all.
included pics of my favorites
I guess I'm just one of those pretentious snobs that thinks celebrities shouldn't just be given jobs in fashion. They aren't fucking qualified. People go to school for this, put in a lot of work. It's one thing to do a line, like beyoncé's ivy park, where it's kind of like having a ghostwriter do your memoir, a celebrity puts their name on it but there's a design team doing most of the real work with the celeb advising. Having a celeb be creatively in charge of a heritage brand? That is a whole different story.
It's the same ick I have for people who call themselves designers but don't know how to sew. You have to understand how clothes are constructed in order to design, and you should have some actual experience in the fashion industry if you wanna be a creative director.
but apparently not i guess, if you're famous enough.
And we'll never know exactly how much of what we see on the runways is designed by Pharrell. We'll never know if he just contributed a few basic ideas or if he actually fully embodies the role of creative director. The PR will always do whatever it can to make it look like Pharrell is fully committed to this and doing the work. This is a big job, one that comes with an immense amount of pressure and stress. This is a job that can have a dire effect, sucking the life out of some, or sending some to rehab (marc jacob's for example, former creative director of LV) and working people to death. Pharrell has really no risk involved in this, if he crashes and burns he will be absolutely fine and no one will really remember that weird time when Pharrell tried to be a fashion designer.
There's also a lot of Chanel referencing... Like of course there is, it makes sense but i'm not happy about it. Just anything related to Chanel at this point gives me an ick. Pharrell was a face of Chanel under Karl Lagerfeld and the two constantly collaborated so it makes sense that that style would be engrained in his aesthetic as a designer.
However purely from an aesthetic perspective, Chanel has been doing what Chanel does since the 80s when Karl took over. They've been doing the same fucking thing stylistically for forever. So why do we need more of that? Why bring that into an unrelated heritage brand that neither Coco or Karl ever had anything to do with. Why flood the luxury market with the same stuff your competitor is not only known for, but constantly criticized for, causing them to be labeled as boring or outdated? Does the world need more Chanel suits? because I think if someone wanted a Chanel suit, they would just go to Chanel.
Aesthetic aside, let Chanel fucking die already. Both her and Karl sucked and we should stop ignoring that.
All that being said I was pleasantly surprised by the collection. Camo of any kind is not for me but there is a customer for that. The accessories stood out, as they should for a brand like LV. and if Pharrell knows how to do one thing it's put on a show and that he did. It was a star-studded massive production and those are fun.