Different designers, similar graphic lines. Looking back at a brand’s archive is clearly no sin

Graphic stripes at Louis Vuitton: left, by Pharrell Williams (2023) and right, by Kim Jones (2012)

It is understandable that, given just four months to put together a collection, Pharrell Williams would look into the Louis Vuitton menswear archives for ideas. Or whatever commensurate with his own taste that reportedly many fans wanted to emulate. And within the brand’s extensive storage of past collections, Mr Williams found pieces that he rather liked, such as one particular striped outer with a front that seemed like a blanket wrap (right). This was a look from the LV men’s autumn/winter 2012 collection, then helmed by Kim Jones, with no signs yet of his ambitions for Dior. The British designer was not making streetwear a big part of his look yet. This was way before Virgil Abloh took the reigns at LV in 2018, and made that appointment the pride of the Black diaspora.

Mr Williams made his version of the coat longer, almost ankle length. It came with a narrow scarf that could, presumably, be used to wrap the neck and shoulders the way Mr Jones styled his knee-length original 11 years ago. The garment did not appear to differentiate between the two key seasons of the house. It is unclear if the weight of the latter LV knit was for warmer climes. But the latest stripes looked sunnier. Rather than the old black and slate grey, Mr Williams used black and a yellow that was between buttercup and bumblebee. It was clearly in keeping with his preference for more cheerful chromatic choices.

For sure, looking at archival pieces is not unusual when new creative directors freshly come onboard at a brand. Even the old hats—many seasons later—look back, such as Mr Jones examining, in his current collection, the work of past Dior designers, but those men are, as much as this is morbid to point out—dead. That Mr Williams would mirror pieces from the past is perhaps immaterial since he did it within LV’s aesthetical canon. Moreover, Mr Jones is a chum, very much active and influential. Nothing is more flattering than work that says to one’s pal, ‘I like what you did’. However, does this indicate Pharrell Williams’s approach as he moves forward? A template? Will creation for today’s consumption to him mean resuscitating the past? Or was this just consistent with the instincts of hip-hop musicians: to extract from any cultural wealth and to connect to the past so as to validate the work of the present? ‘Reinvent’?

Update (26 June 2023, 17:05): An American fashion designer, Kellie Ford, has posted a video on TikTok four days ago to say that a Louis Vuitton shopping bag that she turned into a tote in 2021 was copied by Pharrell Williams for LV. No comment yet from Mr Williams or the brand

Photos: gorunway.com