Posted 24 Feb. 2023 at 15:31Updated 24 Feb. 2023 at 15:59
He likes to describe himself as the son of Pharaoh. A nod to his father, but also to a mythology he made up for himself. A hybrid character, on whom the years have no hold, the 49-year-old man seems to want to defy space and time through his art. The artist intrigues, often speaks in metaphors. Today, it is not through words, but through ready-to-wear, that the artist will have to express what he has long conceptualized: the hybridization of all cultures. New men’s creative director at Louis Vuitton (LVMH, owner of Les Echos), Pharrell Williams replaces his friend Virgil Abloh, who died suddenly in November 2021. Like him, he is a true jack-of-all-trades artist, a cultural icon anxious to federate through the arts, to deconstruct codes. If he now occupies this place of choice within the first luxury brand in the world, it is because everything in its history seemed to predestine him there.
At the crossroads of the arts
To explore Pharrell Williams’ career is to delve into a dizzying list of records, entrepreneurial projects, collaborations, ranging from music to design, from contemporary art to real estate. The one who grew up in the seaside resort of Virginia Beach, haircut, teenager, like the rapper Big Daddy Kane, built his imagination around various figures, from legendary skateboarders Tony Hawk and Christian Hosoi, to musicians Doug E. Fresh and Slick Rick. A melting pot that has never left him.
With 14 million subscribers on Instagram, he alone embodies this figure of the show, of entertainment sought following by fashion today, mixing the cutting-edge and the popular, the accessible and the elitist. When he is not collaborating with big pop stars, signing among others the cult hit I’m a Slave 4 U of Britney Spears, here he is imagining contemporary furniture with the publisher Domeau & Pérès or the Galerie Perrotin, even becoming an exhibition curator. Formerly a coach in the general public program The Voice, he gives life to his own brand of liqueur, creates macaroons for Ladurée or collaborates on a joint work with the visual artist Takashi Murakami.
A permanent big gap, which led him quite naturally towards fashion. His incursions have also been numerous with multiple collaborations, from Moncler to Chanel, of which he was still one of the ambassadors last December during a parade in Dakar, via Adidas, Uniqlo or the brand Comme des Garçons. with whom he will sign a perfume. When the Financial Times asks him regarding his relationship with clothes last September, he answers quite simply: “Fashion and music are like time and space, you can’t have one without the other. Even Mozart wore something. »
A born “entertainer”
A response that fully echoes the current ambition of the fashion sector, at a time when fashion shows are real shows, demonstrations of power. And this, as much by the choice of spectacular locations as through a scenic approach playing with superlatives: the last Vuitton men’s show, last January, thus invited pop superstar Rosalia on stage, for a collection imagined by both designer and painter Colm Dillane, founder of the KidSuper brand, stylist Ibrahim Kamara and Ukrainian artistic director Lina Kutsovskaya. The sets, meanwhile, were signed by directors Michel and Olivier Gondry.
Pharell Williams, in 2013, the year he produced or co-produced 51 titles…©Christopher Anderson/Magnum Photos
An idea of the collective dear to Pharrell Williams since its beginnings, he who launched with his group Neptunes a revolution, at the dawn of the 1990s, on the hip-hop and R’n’B scene. With producer Chad Hugo, Pharrell will sign the classics of an era, to the point of entering the prestigious “Songwriters Hall of Fame” in 2020. Will be born from his imagination a succession of titles for Mariah Carey, Justin Timberlake, Jay-Z or Madonna, allowing him to win 13 Grammy Awards, to appear on the tubes Drop It Like It’s Hotde Snoop Dogg, Blurred Linesde Robin Thicke, Get LuckyDaft Punk or even to sign his planetary hit Happynumber 1 when it was released in the United States, France and the United Kingdom.
Pharrell Williams, a happy man? At least that’s the image conveyed by this powerful incarnation of pop culture. For Louis Vuitton, the number 1 luxury brand, with phenomenal power, it also means recruiting a name beyond fashion, a personality known to all, both influential and unifying, as Virgil Abloh was able to be. . In his book Places and Spaces I’ve Beenpublished by Rizzoli, the star brings together guests as prestigious as they are diverse, from Zaha Hadid, to Anna Wintour, including astronaut Buzz Aldrin and composer Hans Zimmer, with whom he has collaborated in particular for the artist JR.
Because Pharrell Williams, far from scandals, cultivates a positive image, marked by philanthropic commitments: from his organization YELLOW, for equal opportunities for the young generation through education, to Black Ambition, supporting disadvantaged entrepreneurs concerned to enter the fields of technology, health or consumption. A committed and therefore political figure: last January, he was received by Emmanuel Macron to discuss in particular the issues around children and digital technology.
A taste for risk
Beyond the arts, Pharrell Williams seems to have become a lookout capable of sensing and apprehending all the cultural and societal movements of the time. A strong asset for the world of luxury, which seeks as much to give meaning, asperity, to its discourse, as to renew itself in the face of the sustained rhythm of collections and fashion shows. This taste for risk, for diversification, the musician has deployed them throughout his career thanks to his entrepreneurial soul. For Louis Vuitton, in 2004 he signed a range of eyewear that still fetches exorbitant prices today, followed four years later by a jewelry collection.
Also founder in 2003 of the streetwear label Billionaire Boys Club, with the Japanese Nigo, recently appointed artistic director of Kenzo, he also launched his well-being brand Humanrace, combining art of living, skin care and clothing, with for watchword inclusiveness and an eco-responsible approach. We also find him at the helm of an ephemeral restaurant with Jean Imbert, creator of his own artistic festival and his online auction site or even at the head of the real estate project The Goodtime Hotelat Miami.
For those who admit to being passionate regarding Stark Trek and space, to the point of naming his first child Rocket, this new chapter has now shifted him into another universe: his first collection as creative director will be revealed in June, during men’s ready-to-wear week. in Paris. A new stone to its decidedly pharaonic edifice.
