This article was updated on April 29, 2023.
Just two months after Pharrell Williams' appointment as Louis Vuitton’s new men’s creative director—and two months before his debut show for the house at Paris Fashion Week in June—the first LV gear of the Pharrell era is here. Or, sort of, anyway. At Pharrell’s Something In The Water music festival, which runs through Sunday in his hometown of Virginia Beach, LV has erected a three-storey, pyramid-shaped storefront stocked with exclusive merch. Vuitton has been careful to note these pieces weren't designed by Pharrell himself, but were instead created “in celebration of” the company's latest hire.
The drop—which comprises an embroidered denim jacket, a hoodie, and three tees—pays homage to the creative polymath’s beloved birthplace with an LV monogram-ified flip on the state’s “Virginia Is For Lovers” slogan. It’s all relatively straightforward stuff, giving no real hints to the direction Pharrell plans to take the line in its post-Virgil Abloh era, but it’s clever and heartfelt, a nod to the graphic-heavy streetwear he helped popularize in the ‘00s.
Of course, to own a piece of this historic fashion moment will cost you a pretty penny. The denim jacket, which is shrouded in an updated spin on LV’s iconic Damier print, clocks in at a cool $3,050. The T-shirts, meanwhile, are $860 apiece, and the hoodie is $1,310. If you don’t happen to be at Something In The Water right now—perhaps the only place on earth you can hear Third Eye Blind, 100 Gecs, the Clipse, and the Jonas Brothers all in one weekend—the merch is all also now for sale on Louis Vuitton’s website.
GQ's Noah Johnson is on the ground at Something In The Water, and sent over a few photos of the Louis Vuitton installation.
