Fanny Pack Jeans Are Coming, Thanks to Pharrell’s Magical Thinking
Look for clutch jeans on influential girls everywhere.
G-Star RAW thinks it’s onto something. In the coming months, the brand will introduce an innovative new denim silhouette: jeans with an integrated clutch. No longer will ladies need to bring a bag to the bar, or depend on a man’s suit pockets to stow some lip gloss during a fancy event — so these are freeing and feminist!
According to designer Paulina Seropian, a similar style was spotted on the street by some key, influential ladies who gave the look their seal of approval. The team loved the idea and got to work, and before the item has even hit the market, workers are clamoring for a pair. Some lucky employees — including the company’s CMO, Thecla Schaeffer — have already gotten their hands (or rather, legs) on them.
An integral part of the company’s ethos is creating hybrids that shouldn’t exist, taking forbidden combinations and mixing them together to — hopefully — create something cool. And perhaps that ideology is precisely why Pharrell Williams was attracted to the 25-year-old brand.
A$AP Rocky on the tour of G-Star RAW’s Amsterdam factory.
The 43-year-old initially got involved with the Dutch denim business in 2014 when Bionic Yarn, a company Williams co-owns that manufactures fabric from recycled plastic from the ocean, worked on a capsule collection with G-Star, called Raw for the Oceans. This past February, Williams’s partnership with G-Star grew when he became co-owner and head of imagination for the brand — a job title that could only be dreamed up in a place that fosters magical thinking.
“This isn’t a publicly run company,” Williams said of his title. “It’s private, so we can do what we want. There are no rules and regulations. It’s great not to be cuffed by normal business practices.”
Pharrell Williams wears a denim jumpsuit as he checks out his company’s offerings.
It’s this attitude that explains the clutch jeans — and so much more. For example, one meeting room in the Amsterdam-based company’s headquarters (which was recently opened to journalists and friends of the brand, including A$AP Rocky, Miguel, and Lion Babe) is an actual teepee. The tent was designed by Williams, who was inspired to create it following an outdoor screening of Inside Out he attended with his son. “When I first joined the company officially, I thought, ‘What will I actually do here? What can I bring?’ Really, I just like to come up with ideas and do things,” he said. “If I want to make a raw denim teepee, I can do that. There’s no one I have to ask.”
But he’s still grateful for his G-Star colleagues’ thoughts, and especially values the women’s opinions. “I have a great team comprised mostly of women because they do it better,” he said. “Just saying. I’m grateful because I’m a mirror. What I mean by that is that it’s the women who are the real stars, so when you see me shining bright, I’m just reflecting what’s around me. Literally.”
Williams insists this mentality of reflection “is really the case for anyone with a company. You may say, ‘I did this, I did that,’ but at the end of the day, what are you without the people around you to lift you and give you the booster power you need to get your ideas off the ground?” He continued, “You don’t lift yourself up. The people around you do. That should be everyone’s philosophy, but for those who won’t do it, I will. These women around me lift me up. They’re incredible.”
So in the fashion world, what does feminism and forward thinking result in? Clutch jeans — ones that might just save the world.
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