LOUIS VUITTON Spring-Summer 2024 Men’s Collection by Pharrell Williams

THE SUN / What will you do when the sun shines on you?

The Louis Vuitton Spring-Summer 2024 Men’s Collection orbits the sun as a focal point for opportunity, responsibility and enhancement. In his first proposal for the Maison, Men’s Creative Director Pharrell Williams looks to the sun as a universal source of life: a radiance that energises, heals and unifies humans across cultures and creeds. As our ultimate guiding light, the sun empowers its pupils to study, improve, and share in our appreciation. It teaches us to shine the light – the love – back on our fellow humans. The impact of the sun is present throughout the collection, in the rays of graphics, the warmth of the palette, and the glistening surface decorations that gild garments and accessories.

VA TO PARIS / Princess Anne

The show is presented on Pont Neuf, the oldest bridge in the French capital, in ever-present view of the adjacent Louis Vuitton studios. It embodies a metaphorical connection between Paris and Virginia, the home state of Pharrell Williams. The evolution it represents inspires memories of Princess Anne High School in Virginia Beach, a seminal institution in the early education of the Men’s Creative Director, as well as recollections of the road that led him to today: the generosity of Marc Jacobs at Louis Vuitton, who ignited a foray into fashion that would only grow through Pharrell Williams’ relationship with Pietro Beccari. The formative premise is epitomised in styling elements and in American varsity jackets amplified through the Parisian confection of the Maison’s ateliers. The premise encourages a study of the sporty wardrobe in tracksuits and knitwear re-contextualised with pearl embroideries or Monogram.

VA IS FOR LVERS / Virginia is for LVERS

The Louis Vuitton initials become the emblem of a new culture of LVERS: a state of mind founded in warmth, wellbeing, and welcome-ness. Employed in graphics and embellishments, the marque represents a culture of a diverse global community connected by a like-minded appreciation for the core values of the Maison: the discernment, the savoir-faire, and the curation of its iconographic elements. The sentiment fuels an attention to detail from the macro level of the techniques and materials of garments and accessories to the micro level of buttons, rivets and zips; each component treated with the same amount of love. The LVERS emblem likewise nods at the slogan of Pharrell Williams’ home state: “Virginia is for lovers.” Revived from the archives, a Marque L. Vuitton Déposée logo appears throughout the collection.

DAMOFLAGE / Damier meets camo

Damoflage splices the heritage Damier pattern of Louis Vuitton with camouflage in a reflection of two diverse domains of style, in simultaneous tribute to Pharrell Williams’ long-time friends in Paris. Employed in three hues across accessories, workwear, indigo denim, pyjama silhouettes, in the intarsia of knitwear and furs, and in the jacquard of tailoring, the pattern morphs the signifier of Louis Vuitton with a defining factor in the personal style lexicon of Pharrell Williams. The outdoor sensibility of camouflage is echoed in colourised landscape motifs featured in prints and jacquards across blanket coats, blousons, pyjamas and shirting, and in coats and bags laser-cut all-over in the Louis Vuitton flower pattern.

DAMIER / Colours starting with yellow

An expression of synaesthesia, primary colours invigorate Louis Vuitton’s classic Damier chessboard graphic. A foundational element in Pharrell Williams’ early familiarisation with the Maison, the Damier is reimagined in a series of new adaptations. An 8-bit Atari Damier motif created by the American pixel artist ET Artist digitalises the pattern. Coloured Damier expressions appear in tailoring, pyjamas and denim. The grain of the Damier leather is interpreted in stitch-like 3-D pigment print in outerwear and tailoring. A pied de poule take on the graphic nods at the heritage men’s wardrobe, while a hand-embroidered Damier pearl decoration adorns tailoring, sportswear and workwear.

DANDY / The dandy

The attitude of the dandy cuts a loosely autobiographical tailored silhouette adapted in a contemporary approach to suiting. Infrequently encrusted with pearls and crystals, it is a considered attention to the art of dressing founded in the principles of sartorialism. Sharply-cut suits in classic but modern proportions set the tone for tailoring executed with the straight or flared sculpting of trousers. Collarless expressions appear in band-collared tunics, or in workwear takes on jackets evocative of the traditional Parisian women’s wardrobe. Shrunken volumes materialise in little cabans, contrasted by the occasional expansion of oversized, boxy trousers, while box-pleat shorts abound in suits.

SPEEDY / Canal Street

A new adaptation of the Louis Vuitton Speedy bag conjures the attitude and hustle mentality of Canal Street on Lower Manhattan, New York City in an everyday icon conceived for every walk of life. Imbued with real-life sensibilities, the new Speedy honours the trapezoid lines of the classic Speedy but appears in supple grained calf leather lined in the finest lambskin. The softened construction enables the bottom of the bag to collapse and drape the way it would through everyday wear and gestures. The silkscreen-printed Monogram induces a blurry, artisanal and almost hand-painted effect, rendered in several colours across nine dimensions.

TRUNKS / Healing properties

The prized Louis Vuitton trunk materialises in Monogram Copper, a healing element essential to all living organisms, known to transform in the light of the sun. The Damoflage pattern features in canvas bags and a leather backpack, as well as in trainer trunks. An oversized Multicolour Damier motif appears across the icons and twisted icons of the Maison. LV Allover calfskin bags are embossed with gold or silver LVs. Epi XL bags interpret the emblematic veined leather in magnified form. Alma bags are adorned with embroideries of artworks by Henry Taylor picturing figures who have been a part of the artist’s life, or pixelized images of Pont Neuf by ET Artist. Soft leather tote bags with appliqué letters imitate the paper grain of carrier bags, black tie bags in Damier are embroidered with pearls, and boat bags in Monogram canvas pay tribute to the Bateaux Mouches that depart from Pont Neuf.

COMFY / Footprints

A desire for comfort is captured in magnified shearling slippers in Monogram intarsia, their outsole embossed with a bear’s footprint, created to leave an impression. The collection debuts a nubuck bowling shoe, a magnified calfskin Mary-Jane, and an LV-crested leather hotel slipper in Damier pop colours. The new LV Sport sneaker emerges in embossed Damier leather or nubuck with a Damier footprint sole, next to an evening football boot with Damier-style upper-stitching. The LV Trainer Maxi is adapted
in nubuck crocodile in the colours of the collection. Glazed leather penny loafers and expanded leather loafers appear in crystal-encrusted variations, while the LV Snowboard boot is rendered in Damoflage-printed crocodile. Several designs are also interpreted with the waffle-relief LV Chunky sole.

SUNGLASSES / Super zooming

Made for focus, Super Zoom sunglasses with caps crafted in the image of camera lenses invite the wearer to see the world through primary colour-tinted glasses. Goggle-like sunglasses transform the shape of the face in dandified manifestations with pearl-encrusted mohawks enclosing the head, and in versions with three-dimensional glasses framed by black wire. Ornate costume jewellery bedecked with pearls, flower pendants and crystals cement a dandy attitude echoed in military buttons transformed into earrings. Rope chains adapt the ropes historically used by the Maison to bind trunks together for shipping, while ball necklaces and bracelets are forged in solid silver.

DETAIL

Explorer caps and glamping hats appear in Damoflage or in Damier, while the latter graces bucket hats with LVERS studs likewise interpreted in fur with pearl chains. Damier crochet beanies are rendered in primary colours reflected in baseball caps adapted from the Speedy bag. A hybrid block cap morphs a bucket hat with a cap, a blocked flat cap nods at DJ hats, and flat caps with dandy ear warmers are crafted in Epi, takes on the Damier, and fur. Magnified fur gloves in intarsia Monogram draw
on cartoon imagery. Fur mittens with matching scarves evoke the Damoflage in intarsia. Dandy belts appear in antique-effect metals with gems and pearls, chain belts with rhinestone-encrusted buckles, and pearl constructions. Utilitarian LVERS belts in Damoflage conjure an outdoors sensibility echoed in micro Speedy bags attached to leather bracelets.

HENRY TAYLOR / Human relations

Artworks made by the American artist Henry Taylor, depicting figures who have been a part of the artist’s life, are featured as micro embroideries on tailoring and denim as well as accessories. The four-decade-long practice of the Los Angeles-based artist – born in 1958 in California – combines pillars of figurative, landscape and history painting in works that supersede the confines of any traditional genre. Henry Taylor’s subjects, which range from members of the Black community to symbolic objects representative of historical struggle, span the breadth of the human condition; each work a holistic visual biography and permanent record of a person or people’s history. Henry Taylor also appears in the show’s filmic prelude, Pupil King.

PUPIL KING

The Louis Vuitton Spring-Summer 2024 Men’s Show opens with Pupil King, a filmic prelude directed by Todd Tourso. Shot on the bank of the Seine with a view of Pont Neuf, it captures a conversation between the American comedian Jerrod Carmichael and the American artist Henry Taylor. The film reflects the show’s themes of love, opportunity and empowerment in an exchange centred around topics of passion, pro-action, perseverance, and the human condition.

JOY (Unspeakable)

The soundtrack for the Louis Vuitton Spring-Summer 2024 Men’s Show features an original composition: Peace Be Still by Pharrell Williams feat. Lang Lang; Chains & Whips by Clipse; and JOY (Unspeakable) by Voices of Fire feat. Pharrell Williams. 

The show has been closed by a musical performance by Pharrell Williams and Jay-Z