admin This is an edition of the newsletter Show Notes, in which Samuel Hine reports from the front row of the spring and fall fashion weeks. Sign up here to get it in your inbox.
On Wednesday afternoon, high above Hong Kong, I ask Pharrell Williams if he’s had any pinch-me moments in his still-fresh role as creative director of Louis Vuitton men’s. It turns out, he’s having one “right now.” “It’s amazing,” he says. “I mean, I could have been anywhere, but I’m here.”
“Here” is, precisely speaking, a fancy member’s club with a breathtaking view over Victoria Harbour. Pharrell is holding court with a small retinue of aides, who have granted me a brief audience with him the day before his sophomore runway show, set to be held on the Avenue of Stars 56 stories down below us. But Pharrell is also talking about the unexpected phase of life he’s now in. He’s here at the helm of a major luxury powerhouse, a situation he says he could never have imagined even a year ago before LV called.
Pharrell tells me that ever since he found out last December that he would succeed his late friend Virgil Abloh, his entire life has in fact been one nonstop fantasy. The generational hitmaker is in a genuine state of wow.
You’d think that if anyone might be basically unphased by such a major career change it would be Pharrell, a man who seems to float a few inches above the ground, all deep humility and thrumming bravado. But even he can’t get over it. Overnight, he went from being a rich and famous superstar to a rich and famous superstar with the resources of a company that employs some 200,000 people around the world at his disposal. All of a sudden, any caps on his relentless creative ambitions were lifted.
Pharrell is dressed simply in a yellow Kenzo sweatshirt made by his friend Nigo, flared blue jeans, and chunky black Louis Vuitton sneakers of his own design. Today, his accessories are doing the talking: a big yellow diamond in one ear, the world’s thinnest watch—a collaboration between Richard Mille and Ferrari—on his wrist. The mustache he’d been rocking for some months was gone. (“Sometimes something is too strong, and it was taking me to another place.”) He’s staring out the window from behind tinted Steve McQueen sunglasses.
GQ: You often describe yourself as a student or pupil, and now you’ve completed your first semester, if you will, at Louis Vuitton. I’m curious what you’ve learned so far.
Pharrell: One of the greatest things that I’ve learned is about really concentrating on how to do something great, and how important it is to have the resources to bring it to life. Being surrounded by the greatest of the greats, team wise, it just makes all the difference in the world. I mean, you can have good ideas all the time. There’s so many people with great ideas, but when you don’t have the right team around you and the unlimited resources and support, it’s just extremely difficult. I’ve learned that. I don’t know how I got anything done before this. Now I’m used to working with an orchestra of brilliant talent.
What’s your connection with Hong Kong?
China’s a beautiful place, and my Asian siblings have just always been so good to me. From Tokyo to Korea to China itself. Hong Kong is really one of the main arteries of business in the world.
When did you come here for the first time?
Man, over 20 years ago for sure.
It’s a place that seems to make a deep impression on people right away.
Well, yeah. I mean, what’s not to love? Number one, it’s a beautiful culture. They have a history of the best medicine, the best food, incredible art, business. There’s no place like it. And to just be back over here in the energy, while they’re coming off of a very serious ebb (Hong Kong’s strict covid lockdown policies, lifted in February, caused a years-long business and social slowdown). We’re here when the slingshot has been pulled all the way back, and it’s about to get let go. To come over here and be on this energetic ride with them, it’s beautiful, and you can see it in their faces, they’re so excited about what they’re going to do. Some beautiful people.
Do you have any pinch-me moments in this job?
Right now. It’s amazing.
Being here, or talking to me?
All of the above. I mean, could have been anywhere, but I’m here. It was written that I’m here. So I’m just very grateful. And I know that’s a popular word these days, which is good. More people are showing gratitude, but I really do feel it down to the very fiber of my being. We’re here in Hong Kong right now. We’re looking at the skyline. What could be better than that?
I didn’t have any expectations. I just was so caught up in the process, as I am now. I’m just very… I’m not overwhelmed in a negative way, but I am consumed by the creative process and executing and getting things right. That’s so important to me.
Did you go right back into the office the day after the show?
Of course. But it’s not an office though. One, it’s a design studio. And two, it’s really more like a dreamland. None of us really work. We dream. That’s our job, to dream.
I knew I wanted to make my mark in bags. And when you think about designer bags, your brain naturally thinks of the canvas Speedy. And I knew that if I was going to play with it, I had to come from a completely different angle. And so I just wanted to use the best leather possible and play with the colors and just set it free. So then it was like, how do we step it all the way up? Okay, well, we can use some exotic skins, but then what about the hardware? The rivets, the hardware between the handle. How do we take that to the super next level? Well, let’s use solid gold and then let’s put an actual lock on it, and let’s even look at the zipper. And at first when I was talking to the team, they were like, “Oh, there’s no way to do a gold zipper.” I was like, “Of course there is. If there’s a way to do a brass zipper, there’s a way to do a gold zipper.” And so we went through the process and we figured it out, and so it’s literally a gold zipper.
Are you often in that position of saying, “I think we actually can do this,” if the initial answer is, “there’s no way to do this”? Are you pushing your team in that way?
Well, we don’t say no, and we don’t use the word impossible. The furthest you get to any of those is “We’ve never done that before,” and then there is the thesis on why we should or why we should not do something.
Did you feel any pressure after your debut show in terms of how you would follow up on that massive spectacle?
You ask yourself that kind of question when that’s your goal. My goal is to just tell stories and elevate, and not just take the brand a step-up—because that’s a stair. I want to go several floors up, and I want to do it every time. This is literally about just leveling up and storytelling.
Man, he was the king to me, and I’m just so happy and proud that he got the appointment and that he was the first. And I feel like he really changed the game, not only for our culture, but he changed the game for fashion, period. It was a first, and I’m just so honored to be a part of the story and just never dreamt that I would ever get this appointment. That’s why it took me by surprise. This job is not something that I wanted, because I just didn’t even think it was within the realm of possibility. It never crossed my mind. Mind you, I worked with the house 20 years ago and did sunglasses 19 years ago. (Then-creative director Marc Jacobs tapped Pharrell to design the Millionaire sunglasses for Louis Vuitton in 2004.) So for me, I had done it and I was grateful for that, and I just never dreamt anything could come after that.
I never thought that this would ever happen, ever. So when Virgil got that appointment, it was like a baton. I felt like I did what I did, and I was so honored that Marc Jacobs brought me in at the time and opened that door for me because that had never happened in fashion, where they would… They had people from hip hop and rap to wear things, be given things sometimes, but never to come in and collaborate.
So this just continues to be this really beautiful dream that lands me in this conversation with you right now, staring at the Hong Kong skyline, and working with this house. I continue to dream. It’s a dream.
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