Pharrell Williams pictured on the Grammys. (Image courtesy: AFP)

Paris:

Luxury vogue home Louis Vuitton introduced Tuesday the appointment of hip-hop artist Pharrell Williams as its new head of menswear. “Louis Vuitton is delighted to welcome Pharrell as its new Men’s Creative Director with immediate effect,” the storied model stated in an announcement. Pharrell Williams fills the spot left vacant because the loss of life of Virgil Abloh from most cancers in November 2021.

The 49-year-old is a longtime famous person within the music world, with 13 Grammys and two Oscar nominations, and has been a fixture within the entrance row of vogue reveals for years.

“Pharrell Williams is a visionary whose creative universe spans from music to art to fashion – establishing himself as a universal cultural icon over the past 20 years,” stated the style home, a part of the LVMH luxurious conglomerate.

His first assortment for Louis Vuitton will likely be introduced in June throughout Men’s Fashion Week in Paris, it added.

“I’m delighted to see Pharrell come back to the house as the new creative director for men, after our collaborations in 2004 and 2008 for Louis Vuitton,” stated the style home’s chief govt, Pietro Beccari.

“His creative vision beyond fashion will without a doubt lead Louis Vuitton towards a new, very exciting chapter,” he stated.

Louis Vuitton’s gross sales have soared because the Covid-19 pandemic, with the corporate now price greater than $20 billion – serving to to show the proprietor of its mother or father firm LVMH, Bernard Arnault, into the world’s richest individual.

Millennial enchantment

The French model had been joyful to maintain coasting on the hype generated by Abloh’s three-year tenure, utilizing his workforce and visitor designers for current reveals.

Abloh, who died aged 41, turned a star amongst millennials as he astutely mixed luxurious vogue with streetwear.

Last month, Louis Vuitton placed on some of the talked-about reveals of menswear week in Paris with a efficiency by pop star Rosalia and overseen by a collective of strongly hyped younger designers.

Pharrell Williams, who got here to fame within the Nineties as a part of hip-hop group The Neptunes, was not usually talked about in hypothesis surrounding the job.

But he matches with the label’s current strikes to draw a youthful, streetwear-focused viewers, and the pursuits he shares with Abloh embrace skateboarding, artwork and music.

He was additionally a fan of Abloh’s: “Virgil you were a kind, generous, thoughtful creative genius your work as a human and your work as a spiritual being will live forever,” he wrote upon the designer’s loss of life.

He has beforehand teamed with different vogue manufacturers for particular person strains, together with Diesel, Chanel, Moncler and Adidas.

His partnership with Louis Vuitton in 2008 beneath then-creative director Marc Jacobs was for a jewelry and sun shades line.

In 2016, Williams was named co-owner of denims model G-Star Raw, and in addition co-founded the Japanese clothes maker Billionaire Boys Club.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)