2023-06-21 00:09:03
The Pont Neuf, the historic bridge that joins the two banks of the Seine in the heart of Paris, has been the scene this Tuesday of the parade —with a performance by Jay-Z included— with which Pharrell Williams has debuted as artistic director of the Louis Vuitton men’s line. On the pavement of the bridge, completely covered by a golden carpet, several dozen models have paraded, in a display of creative muscle of this new facet of the singer. It was inevitable, at the same time, to attend to the very dense population of celebrities of the event, a large representation of the social and creative circles of the American musician and creative. Rihanna, Beyoncé and her husband Jay-Z, Jared Leto, the NBA star LeBron James, Lewis Hamilton, Naomi Campbell, Zendaya or the multimedia star Kim Kardashian have traveled to the French capital to wrap up Pharrell in a still photo of the American star system and also of the stars linked to social activism and the vindication of the cultural legacy of the black communities of the United States.
Despite being held on the Pont Neuf, a few meters from the firm’s headquarters, access to the show has followed a laborious ritual, more typical of an initiation experience than a runway. To get to the final location, you had to navigate the Seine from the pier near the Musée d’Orsay; Not surprisingly, the time for the presentation of the collection for spring-summer 2024, 9:30 p.m., seems to have been chosen to take advantage of the golden light that invades the area at that precise moment. What Williams has evoked is a hyperbolic and deliberately postcard Paris. In fact, the invitation to the event consisted of a stack of postcards designed for the occasion. The Pont Neuf also evoked the baroque Paris where luxury was born: it was precisely Louis XIV, the Sun King, who decided to protect and promote the artisan trades linked to clothing and decoration through his finance minister, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, whose surname today gives its name to the committee that ensures the protection of luxury in France.
More informationFrom left to right, Kim Kardashian, Lewis Hamilton and Zendaya, at the Louis Vuitton show this Tuesday in Paris.STEFANO RELLANDINI (AFP)
Pharrell Williams, crowned the Sun King of fashion in an unprecedented event —the debut for Virgil Abloh’s brand, in 2018 at the Palais Royal, was impressive but smaller—, has in his hands the task of continuing the idyll between this firm that emerged as a travel goods house in 1854 and that, especially since its acquisition by Bernard Arnault, founder of the giant LVMH, has managed to capitalize like no other company on the desire for symbols of luxury. Especially since, as the artist has declared, he believes that his work at Louis Vuitton should pay tribute to the legacy of Virgil Abloh, the designer who preceded him in office and whose sudden death, in November 2021, dramatically interrupted one of the creative adventures and most exciting concepts of contemporary fashion.
Pharrell Williams greets at the end of the presentation of his first collection for Louis Vuitton.JULIEN DE ROSA (AFP)
In fact, in the designs presented in Paris, Pharrell Williams implicitly acknowledges Abloh’s influence and places himself in his wake: the clever rhetorical games with the house’s prints are there to prove it. The Damier print, for example, in a checkered style, invades clothing and accessories. Sometimes it is declined in bright colors, such as red or yellow, but in others it is transformed into pixelized landscapes that perfectly summarize what Louis Vuitton is in 2023: a brand of nineteenth-century origin without problems to dominate fashion in the digital age. If logos and monograms were born as status symbols, for Williams—and also for Abloh—they can become a sign of identity. Hence the parade, whose soundtrack has been performed live by an orchestra and the well-known Voices of Fire gospel choir, has been marked by perceptible emotion.
The Damier print has starred in several of the proposals for the Louis Vuitton spring collection, presented this Tuesday in Paris. LUDOVIC MARIN (AFP)
This parade culminates a process that began last February, when Pharrell Williams was appointed creative director of Vuitton, in what the sector interpreted as a gesture of continuity with respect to the work of Virgil Abloh. The alliance between music, fashion and celebrity had already been a constant in that creative stage, when the designer contributed to introducing social issues and new sensibilities in the French luxury house.
View of the Louis Vuitton fashion show on the Pont Neuf, in the heart of Paris. LUDOVIC MARIN (AFP)
Pharrell’s era at the head of Vuitton has been demarcated with small capsules. Last Monday, one day before the parade, the portal specialized in fashion WWD published an interview with the American musician and creative, where he posed with unpublished garments —a perfect leather jacket, among them— presumably belonging to his first collection. In his statements, he confessed to spending weeks wearing the new garments, trying them out to improve them, in a gesture that reveals the perfectionism of a creator who is under scrutiny in much of the industry. Days before, the artist himself had published in your instagram accountin which she accumulates 14.6 million followers, an image from the first campaign under her tenure, which shows the singer Rihanna carrying several bags with the brand’s emblematic monogram in white on backgrounds of different colors.
Minutes after the end of the parade, with an emotional Pharrell Williams waving in the company of his team from the brand and the musicians who have participated in the presentation, an unexpected finale has begun: a live performance by Jay-Z, a perfect symbol of the tectonic forces that move the industry of style.
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