Since Abloh’s passing in late 2021, Pharrell Williams will be Louis Vuitton’s first permanent head of menswear.
However, Pharrell’s role as creative director differs from that of Abloh at Louis Vuitton, where his title was “artistic director.”
The design superpower verified the rumors in an Instagram post and complimented Pharrell as “a visionary whose creative universes transcend from music to art, and to fashion.”
Also warmly commended was Pharrell’s accomplishment of “establishing himself as a cultural global star over the previous twenty years.”
The company also went on to laud Pharrell Williams as an individual who continually “breaks boundaries across the various worlds he explores.
Pietro Beccari, the chairman and CEO of the company, took a moment to “welcome Pharrell back home,” as the company had collaborated with him in both 2004 and 2008.
Pharrell’s first Louis Vuitton collection will debut in June 2023 as part of Men’s Fashion Week in Paris, which suggests that he’s already had time to work with the LV menswear team, collections usually take many months to assemble.
Louis Vuitton was without a permanent creative or artistic director for the entirety of 2022, instead presenting collections designed by the remaining menswear design team alongside a series of tributes to Abloh.