Louis Vuitton’s CEO Answers Key Questions on Pharrell’s Debut

PARIS — After the November 2021 death of Virgil Abloh, Louis Vuitton’s former menswear designer, potential successors included Grace Wales Bonner, Martine Rose and Kidsuper’s Colm Dillane. Dillane even did what amounted to an audition show in January 2023, with the blessing of then Louis Vuitton chief executive officer Michael Burke.

But by then, the decision had already been made. In December 2022, before he officially became the new CEO of Louis Vuitton, Pietro Beccari called Bernard Arnault, chairman of Vuitton’s parent company LVMH, and recommended Pharrell for the job.

Why give the role to Pharrell Williams, a celebrity musician and not a traditional fashion designer? What is Williams actually doing in the role? And was his debut show a success? These were some of the questions on the minds of industry insiders as they took in Vuitton’s menswear extravaganza on Pont Neuf on Tuesday evening.

BoF spoke to Pietro Beccari to get his take on these questions — and get a peek into the future of where Vuitton by Pharrell goes from here.

Why did Vuitton give the men’s creative director role to Pharrell Williams and not a traditional designer?

During his tenure, Abloh created a real sense of global community around the Louis Vuitton brand, one that brought new openness to a luxury model rooted in exclusivity, which Vuitton had helped to pioneer. In doing so, Abloh became more than a creative director, he became a sort of messiah who opened Vuitton up to people who had never engaged with the brand before, thereby broadening its reach.

“Of course, I thought about appointing an incredible designer to succeed Virgil — but I needed someone who could really step into Virgil’s shoes,” explained Beccari. “So, I thought of doing something unexpected, something never done before in the fashion industry. Pharrell is similar to Virgil. He is in touch with so many worlds.”

“Louis Vuitton is a multifaceted company. We are part of the life of the people in 70 countries. We have long moved beyond fabricating and selling products. We produce books, we sponsor sports,” Beccari added. “Virgil understood this, and who better than Pharrell than to take his place?”

It must not have been lost on Beccari that Black American hip-hop culture is a major cultural export from the United States to the world — and has shaped the global fashion market in countless ways.

Still, Beccari acknowledged the risk in hiring Pharrell. “It was a big risk to take on board a megastar. Will he dedicate enough time to produce something, from his creativity, to drive the evolution of the brand?”

Beccari was convinced, in part, by Pharrell’s humility and work ethic — and that he agreed to spend one-third of his time on Vuitton.

“Pharrell defines himself as a pupil. I got to see this in 2008 when he worked with Louis Vuitton on a jewellery line,” he said. “I saw how dedicated he was to learning the savoir-faire, his immense curiosity, his grasp of the mechanism of a company. I saw a guy who was willing to go the extra mile. This is why I went to Mr Arnault and asked Alexandre [Arnault] to give Pharrell a call to see if he was willing to listen.”

What does Pharrell actually do as Louis Vuitton’s creative director of menswear?

With more than €20 billion in annual revenue, Vuitton is not just the world’s largest luxury fashion brand, but also its largest luxury menswear business. “There is a real job to be a designer,” Beccari said. “They have to be the leader of this huge studio team and interact with marketing and merchandising teams.”

But Vuitton was also looking for an ambassador to engage customers, fans, celebrities and influencers.

“This is the first time we’ve put a super well-known person as a creative director — a real megastar,” said Beccari. “We needed an ambassador for the brand at large.”

Here, the job is more about storytelling across a wide range of formats, from events to films to social media (according to Bernstein analysis, Vuitton publishes more than 100 social media posts per month), in an effort to plant the brand more deeply within contemporary culture.

It’s no accident that LVMH now refers to Vuitton as a “cultural brand” with a footprint that touches art, music, sport and more, as well as fashion. Along with his star power, this sense of breadth was one of Abloh’s greatest talents — and where Pharrell also excels.

What does Pharrell’s first collection tell us about the direction of Vuitton menswear?

“Pharrell put together a presentation for me before he signed the contract,” Beccari explained. “It was spot on, had a very clear direction, coming to it from a client’s point of view. He has a personal style, and we all know it.”

Indeed, Pharrell’s personal style — influenced by his close relationship with Karl Lagerfeld at Chanel and his link to hip-hop music and culture — was clearly visible, but there was also a move to a more dressed-up Vuitton than under Virgil Abloh.

“This is a moment for a more dressed up man; for tailoring; for clothes closer to the body, as we saw in the collection,” added Beccari.

But the biggest signal about the future of Louis Vuitton menswear from Pharrell’s debut collection was the elevation of Louis Vuitton’s signature damier pattern from the sideshow to the main act. The checkerboard pattern is actually older than the now ubiquitous Vuitton monogram, but offers the brand a fresher canvas.

On Tuesday evening, Williams shifted the damier from a house code available in its subtle Azur, Ebène and Graphite variations on classic handbag silhouettes to vibrant, pixelated patterns in saturated colours on everything, everywhere in the show. We can expect the damier to continue to be introduced in different shades and colourways each season.

Some observers, including BoF’s Angelo Flaccavento, found the execution too on the nose, saying the constant repetition of the damier weighed down the collection. There is truth to this, but the execution can be improved going forward. Others noted more than a slight resemblance between Pharrell’s pixelated damier and a similar pattern in Jonathan Anderson’s Spring/Summer 2023 Loewe collection

In the end, any Louis Vuitton fashion show is about the bags, which drive the lion’s share of total revenue — analysts say between 85-90 percent — for the brand. Leather goods remain the primary entry point for new customers to the luxury sector. And the umpteen bags in the show were highly-identifiable, an important consideration for new and aspirational luxury customers.

So, did Pharrell’s debut accomplish the mission set by Beccari?

The mood of the crowd after the show was noticeably buoyant, even among the most hardened fashion insiders. Some people used the words “epic,” “unlike anything I’ve ever seen”, and “I’ll never forget that I was here” as they were shuffling towards the exits after Jay Z’s (surprise) performance.

But there were detractors too — especially online, where commenters questioned the values and optics of the world’s largest luxury brand privatising public space for a gilded fashion show amid rising inequality and a cost of living crisis in Paris and beyond.

More than one person cited the recent column by Janan Ganesh in the Financial Times entitled “Luxury goods: Europe’s joke on the world,” which wondered out loud who buys this stuff and why?

Still, one thing everyone agreed on was that Tuesday’s Louis Vuitton spectacular was unprecedented. This was the moment when fashion and entertainment collided to create a moment that will not be soon forgotten by those both attending and following the action online.

The show’s sheer scale and the investment level required to deliver it certainly had rivals at Kering, Chanel and Prada watching with interest.

According to analyst estimates, Louis Vuitton now spends €1 billion a year on marketing, or about 5 percent of its total annual revenue, more than any other luxury brand. And ultimately, marketing was the point of Tuesday’s outing.

The power of Pharrell’s personal relationships and the brand’s undeniable pull drew a group of the most influential group of global celebrities seen outside the Met Gala and made this the show with the highest potential reach in fashion history.

How does Beccari measure the performance of a spectacle like this? “Through the sensation and gut feeling after leading three companies as CEO, I felt the energy in the air around the bridge and received an overwhelming number of messages. When the analytics come I know they will already tell me what the gut feel tells me.”

More than anything, Pharrell’s Louis Vuitton show is the latest signal of how fashion is changing and morphing to become a pillar of popular culture. Whether industry insiders are ready for this change remains to be seen. Luxury customers, it seems, are already there.

According to Louis Vuitton’s internal data, the show has already clocked more than 500 million online views in the three days since the show.

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Disclosure: LVMH is part of a group of investors who, together, hold a minority interest in The Business of Fashion. All investors have signed shareholders’ documentation guaranteeing BoF’s complete editorial independence.