Pharrell Williams
The multihyphenate on fashion, cultural crossovers, his career and fame.
Two months ago, in the midst of New York Fashion Week's manic, frenetic energy, Pharrell Williams sat in a silent wing of the Brooklyn Museum looking pensive, almost meditative. He'd just finished production on Ariana Grande's album “Sweetener,” not to mention all the various singles (“Nice” and “Apes--t” for
The Carters, “Skeletons” for Travis Scott's “Astroworld,”) he'd pumped out over the course of 2018. He also had business deals to look out for: his line with Adidas and an upcoming collaboration with Chanel slated for 2019. Plus, he was at the museum that night hosting an event called Yellow Ball for hundreds of guests. So, yeah, he had some stuff on his mind.
But for the musician, businessman and creative, keeping his hands in all sorts of endeavors is an essential part of his process understanding the human experience, learning new things and telling stories. This is how he explains it, via FaceTime.
It's November now, and Williams is in California — so a pristine blue sky and palm trees are visible in the background of the parking lot outside of his recording studio, where he's sitting. When he speaks, he has that same calm, self-assured nature he possessed while alone in the Brooklyn Museum. He's talking about his latest line with Adidas, titled Solar Hu, which he explains differed from past lines with the athletic label.
“This one was culturally influenced,” he says, adjusting the large, black Celine sunglasses he wears throughout the interview.
“The core of what it is we do visually, beyond the clothes, is we try to tap into different stories of people that I admire, or take inspiration from. A lot of the people in our campaigns were of Sudanese, Senegalese and Kenyan descent because we wanted to highlight some of the beautiful skin complexion that's often seen there. We're using our platform to illustrate the beauty that is in the diversity of other colors. Not many brands in the past were willing to stand with ethnic stories in such a real, authentic way. If they did it, they would do it in ways they felt were palatable.”
Williams' first work with Adidas released in 2014: a spare collection of reworked Stan Smiths and the Superstar zip-up jacket. Today, he's released upward of a dozen collaborative projects, and is continuing this tie-up with an expansion of the Solar Hu line. In 2019, Williams and Adidas will release a limited-edition range of reworked track jackets with the Ethical Fashion Initiative, an organization that links artisans from developing countries to fashion's international value chain. The jackets are adorned with upcycled brass trim handmade by metal workers in Nairobi, Kenya, and the three stripes are detailed with beading the city's artisans put together.
Williams says his interest with Adidas began in the Eighties, when he was a kid in his hometown of Virginia Beach. He says he first saw the company's sneakers on the block, then heard Run DMC's song “My Adidas.”
“We listened to that for years,” he says, laughing.
So when A Bathing Ape's Nigo introduced Williams to the team at Adidas in the mid-Aughts, the musician recalls he stated his case plainly.
“I just said, ‘Listen, this is long overdue,'” he says. “‘It's time. You guys are a brand of the people.
Let's do it.'”
Nic Galway, senior vice president of global design at Adidas, remembers the first time he met Williams quite clearly. It was early in the musician's partnership with the athletic brand, and Williams was playing at Coachella. He invited Galway to stay at his villa and they hit it off.
Once they began working together on the collaboration in
2015, Galway says Williams had a clear vision.
“He wanted 50 colors of our classic Superstar to represent freedom of choice and said the shoe should be available to everyone,” Galway recalls. “Our initial reaction was to focus down to the most commercial colors, but he was very clear it needed to be all 50.
“Pharrell connects with everyone in the room and encourages them to think bigger than product,”
Galway continues. “He takes inspiration from everywhere, whether it be globally or across the brand, and wants to create change with everything he does.”
The musician had his finger on movements in the fashion industry that are now central to brands' ethos years before people even considered them. A push for diversity, gender-fluidity, sustainability (he established the company Bionic
Yarn, which converts plastic recovered from the ocean into fibers for clothing, in 2010), streetwear meeting luxury — and most importantly, that one word which so many ceo's and strategists lunge after like wolves: authenticity. Brands today want desperately to participate in the cultural zeitgeist, and know their customers can sniff out inauthenticity with precision. With Williams, they have someone who not only is part of the culture, but in many ways is creating it. Each project Williams takes on as a collaboration — however varied in its cause, background or brand messaging — makes sense for him. Chanel? Sure. Adidas? Of course. The “Despicable Me” soundtrack? Why not! Fans have always referred to the man formerly known as Skateboard P as a person from the future, an alien, other. But otherworldliness isn't a quick and singular answer to the question: How has Williams been so ahead of his time? How did he know these categories were going to be the wave 10 years before they became “It” movements?
Karl Lagerfeld, too, says he recognized Williams' unique take on fashion, and his agility and talent across the spectrum of pop culture.
“I think this kind of person never existed before,” the designer says. “Sometimes, people in fashion can be a little silly, but not Pharrell. He loves fashion, but he also finds fashion to be a serious business.” More than a front-row fixture at Chanel, Williams has starred in two Metiers d'Art shows — once on the runway in Paris; another time as the star of Lagerfeld's film “Reincarnation,” which accompanied the Chanel ParisSalzburg 2014 Métiers d'art Collection, and for which Williams composed an original song, “CC the World.” In 2017, he became the first man to star in a Chanel handbag campaign, and he customized a pair of Adidas NMD sneakers with Chanel that now resell for upward of $12,600.
In March, Chanel is to unveil a capsule of ready-to-wear and accessories by Williams and carrying his name. Lagerfeld stresses during this process — the details upon which Williams remains mum — he left the musician totally free. “It's what he wants to do. I don't want to influence him,” he says. “I think he's genius. He's a good musician, a good performer. Plus, I like his personality, and I like his style.”
In 2015, Kanye West noted Williams' uncanny ability to predict what would heat up, culturally speaking, next. West presented the CFDA Fashion Icon Award to Williams, and in his speech, referenced his peer as being one of the first members of the rap and hiphop community to pervade the high fashion scene.
“Fashion had to be the hardest high school that I ever entered,” West said onstage at the time. “But at least I had a big brother, [who] had already worn the tight jeans, and went to the fashion shows — and had been called too hip-hop to be at the fashion show. Pharrell has always been my style idol. And there would be no me, no A$AP [Rocky], without Pharrell…”
These days, much of fashion exists in tandem with hip-hop — this past season saw Offset of Migos walking down Jeremy Scott's runway and Cardi B sitting front-row at nearly every show. Rap culture has morphed into something of pop culture, and luxury has converged with streetwear at every price point. Williams paved the ►