FASHION: How Kendall Jenner Wants to Ditch the Nepo Baby Playbook – FASHION: Pharrell Williams Brings Out Beyoncé, Jay-Z for Louis Vuitton Fashion-Week Debut https://textile-future.com/archives/114473
Dear Reader,
The Editorial Team of TextileFuture is suggesting two features today for your personal reading.
The first feature is about Kendall Jenner, a super model.
The second item is also a fashion item. It is entitled “Pharrell Williams Brings Out Beyoncé, Jay-Z for Louis Vuitton Fashion-Week Debut”
Both items are well written and with captions, and they appeared before in the Wall Street Journal Magazine.
We hope that you like our choices.
We wish you a very happy time and our best wishes will accompany you during the week ahead.
Check back next Tuesday for the next issue of TextileFuture Newsletter. Thank you!
Sincerely yours,
The Editorial Team of TextileFuture
The supermodel—who says she’s felt out of place at times in her famous family—is making a name for herself as an entrepreneur.
By guest author Elisa Lipsky-Karasz | Photography by Sean Thomas for WSJ. Magazine | Styling by Louise Ford
Updated June 21, 2023
Here starts the first item:
Kendall Jenner is acting like a new mom. “I’m literally obsessed,” Jenner says of the new arrival. “All I talk about is him.”
Who’s the dad? An Olympic athlete—he competed in Tokyo in 2020, she says—like her own parent, gold medalist Caitlyn Jenner. Kendall usually goes for athletes: In a preview for the new season of Hulu’s The Kardashians, her half-sister Kim Kardashian roasts her by wearing a T-shirt that reads “Kendall Starting Five,” featuring the NBA players Jenner has reportedly dated.
Kendall Jenner is acting like a new mom. “I’m literally obsessed,” Jenner says of the new arrival. “All I talk about is him.”
Who’s the dad? An Olympic athlete—he competed in Tokyo in 2020, she says—like her own parent, gold medalist Caitlyn Jenner. Kendall usually goes for athletes: In a preview for the new season of Hulu’s The Kardashians, her half-sister Kim Kardashian roasts her by wearing a T-shirt that reads “Kendall Starting Five,” featuring the NBA players Jenner has reportedly dated.
But Jenner managed to keep this latest news about the birth fairly private despite her very visible life. Paparazzi perpetually follow her, whether she’s grabbing a sushi dinner in an L.A. strip mall with her sister Kylie Jenner or attending a Lakers game with music star Bad Bunny. There was neither a headline in the Daily Mail nor an Instagram grid post announcing the news to her 291 million followers.
Jenner—a self-described horse girl—wanted to breed her beloved mare, Dylan. And the new addition is actually Dylan’s foal, a lanky bay colt. “Look at his legs,” she says proudly, showing a photo on her phone. Riding has become a salve to her, a private world she has retreated to for the past seven years, when keeping up with being a Kardashian becomes too overwhelming. Last year, she even dipped her toe into competition, under a pseudonym.
As for having her own children, Jenner, 27, is in no rush. “I’m excited for that time in my life,” she says. “I just know it’s not right now.” And when that time comes, she plans to leave Los Angeles. “Oh, yeah. You heard it here first.”
Her career already pulls her away from L.A.—during show season, she walks the runway in Milan for Versace and Prada, or New York for Marc Jacobs. And in recent years, she frequently visited Mexico doing research and development for her nascent tequila brand, 818, which she launched in 2021. It’s named for her hometown area code, though it is made in partnership with a producer in Jalisco, Mexico, where the agave for her tequila is grown. She’s just as likely these days to be in Dallas for a meeting with 818 distributors as Paris for a fashion shoot. Just two years post-launch, 818 is on track to sell 160,000 cases of tequila this year, the company says, and has made an impression in the crowded spirits marketplace by appealing to Jenner’s peers.
As for having her own children, Jenner, 27, is in no rush. “I’m excited for that time in my life,” she says. “I just know it’s not right now.” And when that time comes, she plans to leave Los Angeles. “Oh, yeah. You heard it here first.”
Her career already pulls her away from L.A.—during show season, she walks the runway in Milan for Versace and Prada, or New York for Marc Jacobs. And in recent years, she frequently visited Mexico doing research and development for her nascent tequila brand, 818, which she launched in 2021. It’s named for her hometown area code, though it is made in partnership with a producer in Jalisco, Mexico, where the agave for her tequila is grown. She’s just as likely these days to be in Dallas for a meeting with 818 distributors as Paris for a fashion shoot. Just two years post-launch, 818 is on track to sell 160000 cases of tequila this year, the company says, and has made an impression in the crowded spirits marketplace by appealing to Jenner’s peers.
Tequila may be a surprising launch for those more familiar with her family’s clothing and cosmetics companies, such as Skims, Good American or Kylie Cosmetics. Jenner did have a clothing line with her sister called Kendall + Kylie, which was created when they were teenagers. More recently she has also partnered with Fwrd, the higher-end fashion e-tail website created by the founders of Revolve.
“I obviously understand I fall under the umbrella of the Kardashian sisters,” says Jenner. “It’s just funny to me, because I am just like my dad in so many ways. I’m such a Jenner, in my opinion.” Prada shirt, USD 2750, knit vest, USD 1420, shorts, USD ,220, socks, USD 260, and shoes, price available upon request, Prada.com.But tequila was an idea she felt passionately about pursuing, particularly when she realized that she and her friends didn’t know of a brand that was aimed at the younger generation. She began putting together 818 with Michael Kives, an early-stage investor and co-founder of a start-up incubator. Convinced by Jenner’s idea, he and his partner at K5 Global, Bryan Baum, put up the seed capital and organized a friends-and-family fundraising round. They also connected her with Larry Goodrich, then an executive at Southern Glazer’s Wine and Spirits, who led them to Mike Novy, a seasoned veteran of the spirits industry. Kendall convinced them to join her brand, says Kives, who adds that she is hands-on with the day-to-day operations of the brand and is a key driver of 818’s sustainability efforts.
“Since I was really young, I felt out of place in my family,” says Jenner, taking pains to explain that she’s not being critical of her clan, whom she speaks to daily. “I was born into this life, but I didn’t choose this life,” she continues.
“I think Kendall has managed to perfectly embody the moment we are living in,” says Miuccia Prada, who has cast Jenner in runway shows and advertisements, most recently in the spring/summer 2023 Miu Miu campaign. “She carries the burden of her influence with intelligence.”
“I think Kendall has managed to perfectly embody the moment we are living in.” — Miuccia Prada
When Keeping Up With the Kardashians started airing on E! in 2007, Jenner was 11 years old; her sister Kylie was 10. Reality TV stardom was less on Kendall’s mind than horseback riding. “I’m not built for this by any means,” Jenner says. “I’m not good at it. I do it, and I’ve learned how to do it.”
“I’m not going to sit here and say, ‘Poor me’ [about the attention], but I do think that it’s pretty intense,” she says. Missoni swimsuit, $440, and towels, $265 each, Missoni.com. Wearing an oversize navy knit and flowy black pants—The Row’s quiet luxury take on loungewear—she leans back into the brown, fuzzy couch in her TV room, decorated with a giant stuffed horse she snagged from a window display for the brand Bode and a print from Richard Prince’s renowned Cowboy series. Her cozy Mediterranean-style house is high in the arid hills above L.A. It’s about 30 minutes but worlds away from the Hidden Hills mega-mansions of her half-sisters Kim and Khloé Kardashian and her mother, Kris Jenner. Everything about it reads “refuge,” from the hidden garden tucked in the back to the living room with vintage rugs and cushion-strewn linen couches.
“From the time she was a little girl, she has seemed really definite in who she is and how she wants to do it.”
— Kris Jenner
The house is filled with rough-hewn wooden furniture and, in subject matter, the art toggles between the horsey (Prince and Raymond Pettibon) and the feminine (Lisa Yuskavage, Tracey Emin, Alex Katz). Even her James Turrell is pink. She says her close friend Fai Khadra, a songwriter and influencer, gives her recommendations of what to buy, joking it is always out of her price range: “He sends me things that are like $6 million.” The only clue it’s a celebrity’s house is the security guard in an SUV parked by the modest front lawn. Jenner worked with interior designers Kathleen and Tommy Clements and Waldo Fernandez, who have said they were surprised that her taste veered away from the slick or over the top. Jenner says she loves hanging out at home: a card-carrying member of the tea-drinking, bath-taking, journal-writing club.
“[Kim’s] like, ‘I used to go to Kitson on Robertson just to get photographed….’ I think she was built for [this life],” continues Jenner. Jenner says that there are videos all over YouTube of her when she was younger screaming at paparazzi, something she trained herself to control as she grew older and her family’s fame continued to grow. “It took me [almost] 20 years to be like, OK, I guess I’m getting used to it now and it’s fine and I get it.”
“I consider myself one of the luckiest people on the planet to be able to live the life that I live,” she adds. “But I do think that it’s challenging for me a lot more than it’s not.”
Kris Jenner, who pitched the original reality series to focus on her four oldest children, who were then in their 20s, says that Kendall was never pushed into filming. Kenny, as the family calls her, wasn’t a frequent participant, Kris says. “I understood that she wanted to do it her way and distance herself when and if she wanted to.”
“I obviously understand I fall under the umbrella of the Kardashian sisters,” says Kendall Jenner. “It’s just weird to me…because I am just like my dad in so many ways. I’m such a Jenner, in my opinion,” she adds later, calling herself a “daddy’s girl.” The pair bonded over her athletic endeavors, she says.
“I think if she wasn’t so busy with her career she might just be another Olympian,” says Caitlyn Jenner. “Kendall is very driven to be the best at whatever she does. When you are born with a lot of siblings that push you to be your best…. She surrounds herself with good friends and family that want to see her succeed.”
At Sierra Canyon School, where Kendall attended high school before switching to homeschooling in 2012, she was a cheerleader. Today, she sees Caitlyn Jenner as often as possible and says her relationship with Kris Jenner, who acts as her manager, is strong.
“I respect her now more than I ever have,” Kendall says of her mother.
“I’m not going to sit here and say, ‘Poor me’ [about the attention], but I do think that it’s pretty intense,” she says. “People are more mean to my family in general. They take everything and make it a bad thing.”
“I think if she wasn’t so busy with her career she might just be another Olympian.”
— Caitlyn Jenner
“From the time she was a little girl, she has seemed really definite in who she is and how she wants to do it,” says Kris Jenner. As a young teen, Kendall expressed interest in modeling, particularly idolizing the Victoria’s Secret models. So Kris tracked down frequent VS photographer Russell James and arranged a meeting with Kendall. Soon enough, he called her for a shoot for Miss Vogue Australia.
Shortly after, Kendall and her agents at the Society Management decided to ditch her last name to give her a better shot of being accepted as a serious contender by the insular fashion world. She also decided against inviting her family to sit in the audiences at her fashion shows. (Kris Jenner says she thought it was a “badass” decision.)
“She was Kendall, she wasn’t Kendall Jenner, she wasn’t Kim’s little sister,” recalls Marc Jacobs, who, on the recommendation of his close collaborator and stylist Katie Grand, met and decided to cast Jenner in her first major show in 2014. “I said [to Katie later], if she fits in the clothes and looks good in the clothes and walks beautifully, I don’t see why she shouldn’t be in the cast. If you are only interested in her because she is Kendall Jenner, I’m not into it.”
“There is something comforting about having a friendship with someone who is adjacent to you in the same industry.”
— Hailey Bieber
Jacobs says he has seen her grow from a more timid ingénue to a fluid, confident supermodel. He has cast her in several ad campaigns, including this spring, and designed her black sequined bodysuit and those boots for the 2023 Met Gala. He now counts her as “that very rare breed of model that has the beauty and has the larger-than-life personality, and truly brings this kind of magic to the clothes and the photographs. It’s the ultimate kind of ingredient to the equation,” he says.
When she was whiteboarding the launch of 818, Kendall and her team also discussed how much she should be at the forefront of the brand. Rather than follow the blueprint of a Kardashian-inspired name (like Kylie Cosmetics or Skims), she went with the area-code number. She does host events to raise awareness around launches, such as the limited-edition Eight Reserve, an añejo blend that sells for around $200, and poses in 818 campaign shoots. She also posts promotions on her Instagram feed, which she says she controls directly rather than relying on a social-media manager. She wants to expand 818—an obvious model is Casamigos, which founders Rande Gerber and George Clooney sold to liquor behemoth Diageo in 2017 for a total of up to $1 billion over 10 years.
Launching 818 has given her freedom. “In modeling you are what someone wants you to be. Where you show up on set, the makeup, the hair. You wear what they tell you to wear, and you take the photo that they want to see,” she says. “So, for sure, being my own boss is really cool.”
.
The feeling of sticking out and constant scrutiny is something she still finds unbearable, frequently mentioning that she is worried people will think she is a “pick me,” slang for someone who is desperate to be noticed. At the most recent Met Gala, Jenner, who is 5 foot 11, says she avoided taking a photo with her more petite sisters, since the Marc Jacobs platform boots she was wearing made her about 6 foot 7. She says she also had a horrible breakout around her mouth the week before the Met. (“I swear I prayed [for it to go away],” she says.)
To assuage her anxiety, she turns to therapy, spending time outdoors and journaling. “It’s horrible writing. [B]ut no one is going to see it but me,” she says. “I’m writing like a fourth grader.” She once practiced Transcendental Meditation regularly but now meditates even more frequently and is constantly looking for new techniques to ground herself. Hailey Bieber, a close friend since her teen years, says Jenner has been encouraging her to return to ballet, which Bieber once practiced seriously, and introduced her to the practice of sound baths. And Kylie Jenner says Kendall introduced a therapist to her
“Kendall is very self-aware…. She is really growing into herself,” says Kylie, who describes her sister as a focused, strategic thinker and planner, unlike herself—and an earlier riser. “I wake up and she’s [working out] in my house. We were a team growing up…. Good, bad, whatever it is, she is the first person I call.”
“We were a team growing up…. Good, bad, whatever it is, she is the first person I call.”
— Kylie Jenner
Kendall and Bieber also speak almost daily. “There is something comforting about having a friendship with someone who is adjacent to you in the same industry. There’s an understanding that person has that other people don’t,” says Bieber, who says she and Jenner frequently bounce ideas off each other for Rhode, Bieber’s skin-care line, and 818. “We try to support each other wherever possible.” The bar for the May launch of Rhode in London was stocked solely with 818.
Kendall is also an executive producer on the Hulu iteration of the show, on which she appears less frequently than her sisters—including a much-tweeted time when she seemed to cut a cucumber like a lanky alien, awkwardly holding the knife and the vegetable in every configuration possible.
“Let me just say I successfully cut ‘The Cucumber,’” says Kendall, who also dressed up as a cucumber for Halloween. “So, if anyone says I cannot cut cucumber, I physically cut the cucumber and I did it tastefully. I didn’t hurt anybody. So I can cut cucumbers.”
She says she regularly cooks for friends, making a rotation of trusty recipes from her parents, like a rice pilaf with herbed chicken and vegetables. Hanging out at home is something she revels in, since outside she is followed everywhere, and all her relationships are picked apart. Bad Bunny, for example, is off-limits, she says, offering a “no comment.”
“I try [to] find the balance of keeping things private and keeping things sacred, [and] also not letting the unfortunate frustration and stress of everyone trying to get in on it stop me from enjoying my side. Does that make sense?” she says. “I’ll go out of my way to do things as privately as possible because I just think that that’s the healthier way of dealing with relationships anyway.”
When she was whiteboarding the launch of 818, Kendall and her team also discussed how much she should be at the forefront of the brand. Rather than follow the blueprint of a Kardashian-inspired name (like Kylie Cosmetics or Skims), she went with the area-code number. She does host events to raise awareness around launches, such as the limited-edition Eight Reserve, an añejo blend that sells for around $200, and poses in 818 campaign shoots. She also posts promotions on her Instagram feed, which she says she controls directly rather than relying on a social-media manager. She wants to expand 818—an obvious model is Casamigos, which founders Rande Gerber and George Clooney sold to liquor behemoth Diageo in 2017 for a total of up to $1 billion over 10 years.
Launching 818 has given her freedom. “In modeling you are what someone wants you to be. Where you show up on set, the makeup, the hair. You wear what they tell you to wear, and you take the photo that they want to see,” she says. “So, for sure, being my own boss is really cool.”
The feeling of sticking out and constant scrutiny is something she still finds unbearable, frequently mentioning that she is worried people will think she is a “pick me,” slang for someone who is desperate to be noticed. At the most recent Met Gala, Jenner, who is 5 foot 11, says she avoided taking a photo with her more petite sisters, since the Marc Jacobs platform boots she was wearing made her about 6 foot 7. She says she also had a horrible breakout around her mouth the week before the Met. (“I swear I prayed [for it to go away],” she says.)
To assuage her anxiety, she turns to therapy, spending time outdoors and journaling. “It’s horrible writing. [B]ut no one is going to see it but me,” she says. “I’m writing like a fourth grader.” She once practiced Transcendental Meditation regularly but now meditates even more frequently and is constantly looking for new techniques to ground herself. Hailey Bieber, a close friend since her teen years, says Jenner has been encouraging her to return to ballet, which Bieber once practiced seriously, and introduced her to the practice of sound baths. And Kylie Jenner says Kendall introduced a therapist to her.
“I think if she wasn’t so busy with her career she might just be another Olympian.”— Caitlyn Jenner
“From the time she was a little girl, she has seemed really definite in who she is and how she wants to do it,” says Kris Jenner. As a young teen, Kendall expressed interest in modeling, particularly idolizing the Victoria’s Secret models. So Kris tracked down frequent VS photographer Russell James and arranged a meeting with Kendall. Soon enough, he called her for a shoot for Miss Vogue Australia.
Shortly after, Kendall and her agents at the Society Management decided to ditch her last name to give her a better shot of being accepted as a serious contender by the insular fashion world. She also decided against inviting her family to sit in the audiences at her fashion shows. (Kris Jenner says she thought it was a “badass” decision.)
“She was Kendall, she wasn’t Kendall Jenner, she wasn’t Kim’s little sister,” recalls Marc Jacobs, who, on the recommendation of his close collaborator and stylist Katie Grand, met and decided to cast Jenner in her first major show in 2014. “I said [to Katie later], if she fits in the clothes and looks good in the clothes and walks beautifully, I don’t see why she shouldn’t be in the cast. If you are only interested in her because she is Kendall Jenner, I’m not into it.”
“There is something comforting about having a friendship with someone who is adjacent to you in the same industry.”— Hailey Bieber
Jacobs says he has seen her grow from a more timid ingénue to a fluid, confident supermodel. He has cast her in several ad campaigns, including this spring, and designed her black sequined bodysuit and those boots for the 2023 Met Gala. He now counts her as “that very rare breed of model that has the beauty and has the larger-than-life personality, and truly brings this kind of magic to the clothes and the photographs. It’s the ultimate kind of ingredient to the equation,” he says.
When she was whiteboarding the launch of 818, Kendall and her team also discussed how much she should be at the forefront of the brand. Rather than follow the blueprint of a Kardashian-inspired name (like Kylie Cosmetics or Skims), she went with the area-code number. She does host events to raise awareness around launches, such as the limited-edition Eight Reserve, an añejo blend that sells for around $200, and poses in 818 campaign shoots. She also posts promotions on her Instagram feed, which she says she controls directly rather than relying on a social-media manager. She wants to expand 818—an obvious model is Casamigos, which founders Rande Gerber and George Clooney sold to liquor behemoth Diageo in 2017 for a total of up to $1 billion over 10 years.
Launching 818 has given her freedom. “In modeling you are what someone wants you to be. Where you show up on set, the makeup, the hair. You wear what they tell you to wear, and you take the photo that they want to see,” she says. “So, for sure, being my own boss is really cool.”
Kendall is also an executive producer on the Hulu iteration of the show, on which she appears less frequently than her sisters—including a much-tweeted time when she seemed to cut a cucumber like a lanky alien, awkwardly holding the knife and the vegetable in every configuration possible.
“Let me just say I successfully cut ‘The Cucumber,’” says Kendall, who also dressed up as a cucumber for Halloween. “So, if anyone says I cannot cut cucumber, I physically cut the cucumber and I did it tastefully. I didn’t hurt anybody. So I can cut cucumbers.”
She says she regularly cooks for friends, making a rotation of trusty recipes from her parents, like a rice pilaf with herbed chicken and vegetables. Hanging out at home is something she revels in, since outside she is followed everywhere, and all her relationships are picked apart. Bad Bunny, for example, is off-limits, she says, offering a “no comment.”
“I try [to] find the balance of keeping things private and keeping things sacred, [and] also not letting the unfortunate frustration and stress of everyone trying to get in on it stop me from enjoying my side. Does that make sense?” she says. “I’ll go out of my way to do things as privately as possible because I just think that that’s the healthier way of dealing with relationships anyway.”
Here is the start of the second item
By guest author Jacob Gallagher from the Wall Street Journal Magazine
In a music-studded debut as men’s design chief, Pharrell Williams takes a producer’s eye (and ear) to luxury fashion’s biggest runway.
It was a few hours before his debut show as the men’s creative director of Louis Vuitton, but Pharrell Williams was almost eerily calm.
“The jitters before something is about to happen, when you’re on the eve of something, I would feel that with music,” said Williams, 50, during an interview at Louis Vuitton’s Parisian headquarters on Rue du Pont Neuf. “But with this, I don’t feel that it’s weird. I am more electrified by the shock of having this appointment.”
Williams wasn’t the only one electrified by his appointment. The decision to place the pop megaproducer, best known for infectious earworms like “Happy,” atop the largest luxury label in existence jolted the fashion world. Some rebelled against the appointment of the untrained Williams as a sign that pop fashion had fully won out over traditional couture skills.
Yet Williams was in many ways a natural heir to his predecessor, the late Virgil Abloh, who died from a rare form of cancer at just 41 in 2021. Both men are Black Americans with a preternatural grasp on what young people think is cool. But whereas Abloh was a designer who morphed into a celebrity, Pharrell entered the atelier as a bona-fide, Grammy-winning, reality-show-hosting star already.
And so, his debut show has been the talk of the fashion-week circuit, with everyone wondering just how Williams would put his imprint on Europe’s highest fashion house.
He did so with a show that shut down the city’s picturesque Pont Neuf bridge, boating all guests down the Seine to attend. A yellow-gilded runway was a Midas-touched iteration of the brand’s recognizable checkerboard motif.
Before a single model touched the runway, there was a celebrity preshow that eclipsed many Oscar red carpets. What other show could bring together LeBron James, Lewis Hamilton, Zendaya, Jay-Z, Beyoncé, Rihanna, A$AP Rocky, Skepta, Beck, Kim Kardashian, Russell Westbrook, Lenny Kravitz, Busta Rhymes, Naomi Campbell and Tyler, the Creator? Williams’s wife and children arrived in matching camo suits from the collection—spurring the sea of photographers patrolling the celeb arrivals to take perhaps the cutest, highest-production-value family portrait in recent memory.
The show was among the most extravagant fashion shows ever orchestrated, necessitating closure of several main Parisian arteries and costing millions in celebrity appearance fees and production. Lighting rigs worthy of a Marvel set towered over the crowd, and stadium-level bass thumped the cobbles of Paris’s oldest bridge.
Smaller labels presenting shows in the wake of Williams’s extravaganza may have also felt rattled, with every Wednesday showing seeming pint-sized and intimate in comparison.
The proceedings featured not one, but two golf carts with beefy Louis Vuitton luggage parked in the back, a live gospel choir broadcast at bridge-shaking volumes and the reunion on the runway of Pusha T and No Malice of the brotherly rap duo Clipse, for which Williams produced many rap bangers decades ago.
Williams, who relocated his family and much of his team to Paris when he assumed the role, said the bridge was chosen as the show location because it had been a source of inspiration for him. “Water’s the thing for me,” said the rapper-turned-designer, who previously lived in Miami and was born in Virginia Beach, Va.
That’s all to say that while before the show, Williams appeared as Zen as if he was mid-massage, the spectacle he put on is unlikely to be topped over the next few days.
But what about the clothes themselves? Williams has long reigned as one of his generation’s most stylish men, and his personal tastes had a clear influence over this debut offering. “My DNA is in it because I was chosen, so obviously there’s going to be that in there, but, you know, bigger than my own historical DNA is my ambitious DNA, the DNA of the things that I want to see,” said Williams, who was wearing a double-breasted Louis Vuitton jacket and a pair of flared jeans in a pixelated, almost Minecraft-like pattern that was seen repeatedly on the runway. (Perhaps an influence of his young children.)
Though the overstimulating affair risked drowning them out at times, the clothes were extremely compelling, and extremely Pharrell. There were checkerboard shirt suits, MJ-esque bedazzled socks and loafers, Chanel-type bar jackets, reptilian motorcycle jackets, monogrammed denim and tall hats. (Of course tall hats!) Nodding to the scale of Williams’s oversight in the new role, the runway featured everything from micro-bags and fur booties to fetching suits and ties.
About 20 minutes after Williams took his bow, he and Jay-Z hopped on the stage and rapped to a crowd of hundreds—making Williams likely the first creative director in history to be his own after-party entertainment.
In 2022, Louis Vuitton, the crown jewel of the LVMH Moët Hennessey Louis Vuitton empire, hit $20 billion in revenue. That was just four years after the brand became the first in the luxury world to notch $10 billion in annual sales. While Louis Vuitton’s menswear collections are believed to make up a very small percentage of overall revenue, they are key in stoking market interest.
Abloh was himself a master of novel luxury marketing. He tapped rappers like Kid Cudi to walk in his shows, he codesigned a signature skate shoe with skateboarder Lucien Clarke and he put on fashion shows that were can’t-miss carnivals with backing bands and blown-out sets. That legacy was certainly kept alive at Williams’s spare-no-expense debut.
In Abloh’s short, four-year run at the helm of the Vuitton design studio, he also masterfully broadened the brand’s customer base, bringing in a diverse set of wealthy young shoppers who snatched up his imaginative monogrammed workwear jeans, bulging sneakers and ornate printed suits.
“My brother in spirit, Virgil, was here first,” said Williams. “He was the first African-American to take on a position like this in the largest fashion house in the world, and it’s not lost on me that they chose another Black American man.”
Even before Abloh, Williams credits Marc Jacobs—Louis Vuitton’s creative director for 16 years, beginning in 1997—with opening up the maison to Black creatives. During his tenure, Jacobs collaborated with Williams (who designed Louis Vuitton sunglasses and jewelry in the early aughts) and Kanye West, now known as Ye.
“Marc Jacobs was the first guy that said, ‘OK, yes, you know, musicians and athletes and entertainers can wear our things and sure they can be in a campaign…But you know what? These guys also have ideas,’” said Williams. “It was the first time somebody let us behind the curtain to let us express ourselves.” Williams said he never dreamed that when he first worked with Louis Vuitton, one day he would be the boss.
Now that he is in that role though, Williams said it was important to him to continue to champion Black ingenuity. “We’re using this platform to tell this really beautiful narrative that, like you know, that our lives matter and that our creativity matters,” he said. Part of the collection featured a collaboration with renowned Los Angeles painter Henry Taylor, transforming his portraits of Black faces into a pattern on blazers and trousers.
“I just lined them up in the same composition as the monogram,” said Williams, “You see the beautiful Black faces. I just think that’s amazing.”
In the interview, Williams, a spiritual man, called himself “the luckiest guy in the room” and repeatedly turned any praise directed at him back toward his design team. “When you hear me talking about the vision, I’m proud of my vision, but my vision has been supported, fabricated and produced by some of the greatest artisans there is in the game.”
Williams’ appointment in February stirred grumblings from some in the industry that the job did not go to a more traditionalist, formally trained designer. The creative director brushed off such concerns. “A lot of people would say, ‘Oh man, well, you know, he didn’t go study here, he didn’t go study there, but, I mean, nor did Vivienne Westwood,” said Williams, nodding to the late British designer often heralded as one of the most inventive punk-tinged couturiers of her time.
Williams was also no novice in the apparel world. In the early 2000s, with his career as a pop megaproducer whirring along, Williams paired with Japanese fashion icon Nigo, who is now the artistic director of Kenzo, another brand under the LVMH umbrella, to found the pioneering streetwear label Billionaire Boys Club.
More recently, Williams has worked with Chanel and Diesel, and has a long-term collaboration with Adidas. He also continues to run his skin-care brand, Humanrace.
And he hasn’t quit music. His office at the Louis Vuitton headquarters is doubling as a music studio, and Williams happily noted that he is “making probably some of the best music of my life.”
Appeared in the June 22, 2023, print edition as ‘Louis Vuitton’s Williams Lights Up Paris With His Fashion-Line Debut’.
Newsletter of Last Week
The Next Big Thing in Men’s Watches Is…Women’s Watches – Cutouts, Sheer Dresses, No Pants: How to Pull Off ‘Naked Dressing’ – The Going-Out Top. For Men https://textile-future.com/archives/113870
Highlights of News of the past Week.
Artificial Intelligence
Never mind ChatGPT: inside marketing’s quiet revolution https://textile-future.com/archives/114082
Couples
Here is how couples have changed conversations https://textile-future.com/archives/113997
Companies
A global first for circularity: Södra and Lenzing receive largest EU LIFE subsidy for recycling project https://textile-future.com/archives/113940
Avalon Completes Purchase of Industrial Site in Thunder Bay as Key NextStep in Becoming Ontario’s First Vertically Integrated Lithium Producer https://textile-future.com/archives/113977
Data
European Statistical Recovery Dashboard: June edition https://textile-future.com/archives/113827
EU Labour market flows in Q1 2023 https://textile-future.com/archives/113835
Structure of general EU government gross debt – end 2022 https://textile-future.com/archives/113960
SDGs & me: Affordable and clean energy in EU https://textile-future.com/archives/113955
ATV talks to Jeff Leung of CASA Systems about the arrival of DOCSIS 4.0 ESD and the development of their Axyom vCCAP https://textile-future.com/archives/114086
EU Household consumption: price levels in 2022 https://textile-future.com/archives/114118
Actual individual EU consumption per capita in 2022 https://textile-future.com/archives/114125
Securing the bilateral approach: Swissmem welcomes the Federal Council’s decision https://textile-future.com/archives/114142
Swiss Construction prices rose by 1.0 % in April 2023 https://textile-future.com/archives/114153
EU’s organic farming area covered 15.9 million hectares https://textile-future.com/archives/114228
Coal production and consumption up in EU in 2022Coal production and consumption up in EU in 2022
EU adopts 11th package of sanctions against Russia for its continued illegal war against Ukraine https://textile-future.com/archives/114298
Economy
Why It Seems Everything We Knew About the Global Economy Is No Longer True https://textile-future.com/archives/113931
ESA
Euclid to study the evolution of the universe over the last ten billion years: ESA online media invitation https://textile-future.com/archives/114145
EU
Commission announces next steps on cybersecurity of 5G networks in complement to latest progress report by Member States https://textile-future.com/archives/113818
Syria and the region: International community mobilises EUR 5.6 billion during the 7th Brussels Conference https://textile-future.com/archives/113815
Joint press release on the meeting between President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen and President of Mexico Andrés Manuel López Obrador https://textile-future.com/archives/113812
Sustainable fisheries: Launch of Energy Transition Partnership for EU fisheries and aquaculture https://textile-future.com/archives/113820
Drugs policy: European Drug Report 2023 shows new challenges for Europe from greater diversity in drug supply and use https://textile-future.com/archives/113833
The EU and the International Partners Group announced a Just Energy Transition Partnership with Senegal combining climate and development goals https://textile-future.com/archives/114195
EU adopts 11th package of sanctions against Russia for its continued illegal war against Ukraine https://textile-future.com/archives/114313
Events
International spotlight shines on returning Intertextile Shanghai Home Textiles 2023 https://textile-future.com/archives/114073
The colorful world of trendy flat knits Introducing STOLL’s latest trend collection COLOR IN KNITTING https://textile-future.com/archives/114261
IFR
IFR President’s Report by Marina Bill – IERA Award Recognizes Innovative Start-Up – Takayuki Ito elected as Vice President of the International Federation of Robotics – Robot Sales in North American Manufacturing Up 12 % – India´s Robot Boom Hits All-Time High – IFR Executive Round Table https://textile-future.com/archives/114280
OECD
New OECD report on the integration of immigrants https://textile-future.com/archives/113843
Personalities
Dr. Alisa Rupenyan to Head up First Endowed Professorship for Artificial Intelligence at ZHAW https://textile-future.com/archives/113807
Opinion Today: Joan Didion, R.F.K. and a decades-old mystery https://textile-future.com/archives/113990
Oliver Streuli New Chief Financial Officer of Rieter Group https://textile-future.com/archives/114015
Alibaba Is Replacing Chairman and CEO Daniel Zhang https://textile-future.com/archives/114050
Marketing
The man behind Innocent’s 20-year Big Knit campaign on marketing with impact https://textile-future.com/archives/114347
What happens when you charge the ‘true price’ for products? https://textile-future.com/archives/114357
Ukraine
EU adopts 11th package of sanctions against Russia for its continued illegal war against Ukraine https://textile-future.com/archives/114303
Switzerland
Launch of new cooperation programme between Switzerland and Latvia https://textile-future.com/archives/113980
Swiss State Secretary Martina Hirayama at Europa Forum Wachau https://textile-future.com/archives/114254
Television
Report: Streaming 36.4 % of May US TV usage https://textile-future.com/archives/114107
UK
Talent & Culture: Sex, drugs and HR’s role: how workplaces turn toxic – and how to stop it. https://textile-future.com/archives/113918
Oman
Trump Real Estate Deal in Oman Underscores Ethics Concerns https://textile-future.com/archives/114022
Women
Responsible Business: Men, are you afraid to work with women? Grow up https://textile-future.com/archives/114245
WIPO
Madrid System Yearly Review 2023: Download Now!
https://textile-future.com/archives/113970
WIPO Webinar: Combating Counterfeit Medicines (June 29, 2023)
WIPO Photography Prize for Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities Youth 2023 https://textile-future.com/archives/114102
WTO
WTO: NEGOTIATIONS ON FISHERIES SUBSIDIES- Belize formally accepts the Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies https://textile-future.com/archives/113847
DISPUTE SETTLEMENT: WTO dispute panel issues report regarding Chinese duties on Japanese steel products https://textile-future.com/archives/114004
WTO Members examine deliberative functions, institutional matters on WTO reform agenda https://textile-future.com/archives/114008
WTO TRIPS:Members to meet external stakeholders to advance discussion on extending TRIPS Decision https://textile-future.com/archives/114094
DG Okonjo-Iweala welcomes His Highness Sayyid Bilarab Bin Haitam Al-Said of Oman to WTO https://textile-future.com/archives/114322
First members to formally accept Fisheries Subsidies Agreement urge others to follow suit https://textile-future.com/archives/11433
One year on from MC12, WTO Chairs Programme holds Annual Conference https://textile-future.com/archives/114341