Review of Louis Vuitton Spring 2024 Men’s Fashion Show
The New Era
By Mark Wittmer
Louis Vuitton’s hugely anticipated announcement of Virgil Abloh’s successor as creative director of menswear had a bit of a mixed reception. It wasn’t obvious what multi-hyphenate musician Pharrell Williams had to do with the house, other than being a hip-hop and fashion-adjacent Black creative, which gave a bit of a sense that the brand was just seeking to check off the boxes that Virgil also filled.
But the appointment is emblematic of a wider trend – of which Louis Vuitton is at the forefront – among the biggest brands of the industry that positions legacy fashion houses not just as creators of fashion and accessories, but of expansive content multiverses. With his connections to music, film, and culture, Williams embodies this broad scope. Even if it’s hard to point directly to the work he creates, things just happen around him. The last few seasons have proved that Louis Vuitton’s in-house design team can still churn out huge collections; Pharrell’s role is thus less of a designer and more of an aesthetic figurehead for a brand identity.
Referencing and focusing Virgil’s themes of optimism and hip-hop culture while making full use of the resources at LVMH’s disposal, the collection was an unsurprising but very solid debut for this (ostensibly) new creative leadership.
Aside from feeling much more cohesive than last season (not a hard task considering how all over the place that collection was), it’s hard to pick out exactly what Pharrell has brought that the design team didn’t have before.
But perhaps that cohesion was the main thing that was needed, and now that we can put a name, a brand, a quote to it, it seems more meaningful. What feels like commercial and glittery updates to the same checkerboard and monogram pieces we’ve seen before becomes a redistribution of ownership and a celebration of Black joy and resilience when it’s set to a gospel choir singing a Pharrell-composed piece of music.
That LV Damier saturated the collection, first appearing as a pixelated camouflage motif – a smart branded update on an American classic that has been reclaimed by just about every music subcultural scene. Then it made its way across denim and jacquard sets, entering a graphic two-tone sequence that felt quite reminiscent of Virgil’s ska-influenced SS21 collection (minus the electrifying colors, architectural proportion, and idiosyncratic subcultural layering).
The collection’s final third felt like a kind of blingified take on classic French menswear chic. Three-piece suits, smoking jackets, and tweed stand-collar jackets a bit reminiscent of Chanel were made extra luxurious through pearl buttons, glittering broaches, layered necklaces, bejeweled belt buckles – an unabashed ode to wealth of the kind made by rappers, but seen through the perspective of a French luxury brand.
Of course it wouldn’t be Louis Vuitton if the bags weren’t the main event, and every look had at least one. Brand classics updated in new colorways were the main focus here, with Damier and monogram again dominating the scene. But we also got some fun new riffs on the covetable and quirky street-style bag (which has been huge since Thom Browne’s dog bag took the world by storm), like a leather version of the shopping bags you get from an LV boutique or the windowed box bag with a shoe in it. The cult of Damier reached its apotheosis as a small truck piled up with checkerboard LV trunks drove down the runway.
The beginning of a new era means the end of an old one. The collection was solid, but not really fresh, and certainly not magical. What is supposedly continuing the legacy of a one-of-a-kind designer whose appointment to a brand like Louis Vuitton was something like a lucky freak accident is in fact commercializing it, draining it of its unique and provocative spirit and reselling it at the lowest common denominator.
Louis Vuitton is a brand; it’s going to do what it can to make money, and Pharrell’s collections will definitely sell. But will they inspire? Will they cause us to see fashion with new eyes? Will they overcome the inherent cynicism of putting art up for sale?
While this is just a debut collection and we’re looking forward to seeing what else he has in store for us, Pharrell hasn’t answered these questions in the affirmative.