Dear Gossips,
Last June, Pharrell Williams presented his first collection as menswear creative director for Louis Vuitton after the passing of Virgil Abloh. That collection is now reportedly the highest-selling in LV menswear history.
Five months later Pharrell’s second collection was shown in Hong Kong where he really leaned into his obsession with the dandy, the surfer sailor CEO dandy who he imagined was travelling on a business trip from Hawaii to Hong Kong.
This week it was back to Paris for Pharrell’s third show and Pharrell’s dandy is now western, an expansion and a reclamation of the western imagery and representation – which is not an original idea, but the more creatives like Pharrell who are attempting to illuminate a more inclusive portrait of that particular slice of Americana, the better. On the LV runway we saw Black cowboys and the Indigenous origins of Western culture were honoured as Pharrell involved both Dakota and Lakota artists and artisans in both the performance and production in the pieces that were shown in the collection. You can read more about Pharrell’s inspiration and work process at GQ.
As for the look of it all – one of the through-threads of LV under Pharrell’s stewardship is how he’s reimagined the classic Damier. We saw in the first collection that he digitised it and made it camouflage – “Damoflage” is what they call it. And now? Damoflage has become “COWMOOFLAGE”, I f-cking love it!
I also really enjoy seeing the male guests on the carpet with their handbags. We are continuing to normalise men and handbags! Look at LaKeith Stanfield. This is so stylish, why wouldn’t we want to see more of this, everywhere all the time?
Yours in gossip,
Lainey
