Pharrell Williams’ Wild West wardrobe

Go west young man, go west. Pharrell Williams did Tuesday – inventing a modern Wild West wardrobe in his latest collection for Louis Vuitton, staged in weather conditions worthy of Montana in winter. 

For his second LV show, Williams took the brand to the Jardin d’Acclimatation in the Bois de Boulogne, building a giant set behind the Vuitton Foundation.
 
One thing every designer in the LVMH empire tells you is that its luxury baron Bernard Arnault likes a big show.  Well, this was massive. Pharrell calling on Disney’s great animator Ron Husband to help illustrate the Vuitton designer’s “vision of the first cowboy.” 

So, the cast marched before a giant screen projection of the Rockies, blending elements of Monument Valley and ‘High Plains Drifter’. And as the show progressed, it began snowing on the screen and later, faux flocks of snow on the audience.
 
In effect, the collection was a series of Western archetypes reinvented as Vuitton dandies. Gunslingers walking by embroidered denim chaps and Doc Holliday redingotes. Randy ranch hands in jerkins made of tooled leather for saddles, or denim jackets embroidered with desert flowers.
 
Sheriffs out searching for rustlers in felt wool cabans or yellow ‘Badlands’ dusters. Like many in the cast marching in masstige collab’ boots with Timberland. A further limited edition of these boots will come in eyelets and LV monograms made in gold.
 
Or barons of cattle,and not couture, in great coats with turquoise stone buttons, anchored by metal tipped cowboy boots – trimmed with LV and Texas – and topped by ten-gallon hats.
 
A show that included a half-dozen gals – in creamy suede barn-dance shirts, rawhide chaps and chain belts with LV riding buckles, or frilly schoolmarm shirts. ‘High Noon’ haute-hipster style.
 
All unveiled before a front row that included Bradley Cooper, Carey Mulligan, Marcus Mumford, Venus Williams, Marco Verratti, and Paris Saint Germain goalie, Gianluigi Donnarumma.
 
Williams continued with his signature suit – composed of flared pants and micro double-breasted jacket without pocket flaps – seen in pristine white wool and faded denim and finished with fabric cacti. And even mingled a few Minecraft looks riffing on his debut collection presented last June on Pont Neuf.
 
No supporter of PETA, he sent out some stupendous furs – from a wildcatter’s ginger fox fur coat to a couture worthy white mink pink coat shaved in a damier print.

Four different models hefted carts with giant Vuitton trunks in red check, in damier or gold – turning to march towards Arnault and his wife Helene, as if symbolically delivery the revenue this collection is sure to garner. 
 
For this was a highly commercial collection from Pharrell, a musician whose ability to churn out one hits after another has now been translated into fashion.
 
Politically correct fashion designers now talk regularly about inclusivity, but Williams is by instinct. From his hybrid music to his multi-cultural mode.
 
All the way to the finale. The Native Voices of Resistance appeared – chanting and battering hand-held drums, their clothes designed to show the history of Vuitton’s linkup with the Dakota and Lakota nations.
 
Even so faintly transgressive, with lots of kilts for boys, and shown on a very diverse cast, this show packed one hell of a wallop. Winning Pharrell – who took a joint bow with his cast, then his atelier and then the musicians – sustained applause.
 
A pedant might quibble that this collection didn’t really advance the fashion vernacular or present any paradigm. But it did achieve one very useful goal. This show was a huge hit, further raising the temperature at Vuitton, the €20 billion marque that is hottest menswear brand in fashion today.