Image via Adidas
Everyone has their own preferences, like never wearing white socks or putting extra sugar in their latte. Sometimes, there is too much, other times there is not enough.
Either if the glass if half full or half empty, one stylistic debate keeps shifting me to one side and back again.
At the cusp of 2015, Pharrell has shown us that he is still attempting a style take over with Chanel’s ‘CC the World’ campaign with Cara Delevingne, Comme des Garçons ‘Girl’ perfume, and a second run with Adidas’s iconic Stan Smith shoe after his explosive popularity with Daft Punk in 2013.
Image via Comme des Garçons x Pharrell
The argument really goes both ways: have the fashion collaborations gone a little too far, or is he still in the game ?
Looking back to 2013 with Daft Punk’s ‘Get Lucky’, where the song dominated every global radio station, popularity chart, and club, is where his new-age comeback was born. Immediately bouncing off of this, we saw collaborations at the end of 2013 with artist Takashi Murakami during Art Basel at Silencio, a Paris based club that hosted a pop-up event in Miami, that I was excited to attend. This was one of the first times he was able to legally perform ‘Get Lucky’ without the direct presence of Daft Punk, and he was also in the presence of his Japanese artistic collaborator Takashi Murakami, which introduced art and fashion into the ‘new’ scene.
Image via Adidas
Soon after, Adidas’s iconic shoe line, Stan Smith, was relaunching a campaign and suggested a limited edition designed by Pharrell. These were sold at Colette in Paris and in special boutiques, and were hand painted by the artist. A second campaign has recently been launched in early 2015 by Adidas and Pharrell, which is focused on a uniform pattern of polka dots (a design not similar to artist Kusama, recently featured by Louis Vuitton in 2013).
Image via Colette
From phones, clothes, shoes, and contemporary art, there is even a collaboration with macaroon
company Ladurée in Paris, which was featured during ‘Pharrell’ week at Colette in 2014, when the ‘Girl’ perfume by Comme des Garçons was released in avant-premiere, and he designed the window displays on rue Saint Honoré in the Paris 1st district.
Too much? Planed move? Or strategic way to re-enter the market on both a music and fashion level? I think it’s a mix of all.
Pharrell clearly made his way back into the picture, and established his name in the style industry as well. Other artists have not even made it this far. In 2013 Kanye West attempted to have meetings with Louis Vuitton and was denied a meeting (suspected for a potential collaboration pitch).
It seems that his collaborations have passionate value for the artist as well. Clearly he enjoys street wear, a nice phone, and macaroons to snack on.
2015 will be an opportunistic year to see how Pharrell continues. Maybe it is time for a world tour? I know it would smell good, sound great, and look edgy.
William Dorn
Spring 2015
AUP Fashion 