An Evening With Pharrell and ‘Phriends’ in Paris
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PARIS — On the eve of Pharrell Williams’ debut show for Louis Vuitton at Paris Fashion Week, friends and fans turned out on Monday night to celebrate the man known in high school as Skateboard P.
Art-world stars such as Takashi Murakami, Kaws and Futura were among the throng that filled the Emmanuel Perrotin gallery for the preview of “Just Phriends,” an online auction curated by Sarah Andelman, the former buying director at Colette and founder of consultancy Just An Idea, for Williams’ Joopiter platform.
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As temperatures soared and the crowd spilled out onto the pavement, Tyler the Creator, A$AP Ferg, Pedro Winter and Jackson Wang took in lots including Nathan Sawaya’s life-size Lego statue “Brick Hat,” representing the “Happy” singer with his head engulfed in his signature oversized Vivienne Westwood hat.
The much-publicized “Microscopic Handbag” by Brooklyn-based collective MSCHF was “lost in transit,” Andelman reported, though the microscope required to view the dust-sized rendition of a Vuitton tote remained on display. “The buyer will receive a new bag that is being confirmed,” she said of the lot, priced at $15,000.
Other unusual items on offer include the grillz designed by Dolly Cohen for Williams, which sat in a display case in the adjoining gift shop.
“By the time she finished them, Pharrell had had his teeth aligned, so he could no longer use the grillz,” explained Andelman, who was sporting a discreet jewel by Cohen, also among the products on sale, on a back tooth. “I’ll have to go to the dentist to have it removed. It stays on for up to seven months.”
The man of the hour showed up almost two hours late and briefly posed for snaps with guests including model Cindy Bruna, before disappearing into a private VIP section with participating artists in tow.
“It feels like a very family event,” said Kaws, who contributed the Moonman statuette he designed for the MTV Awards in 2013, where Williams presented an award to Taylor Swift alongside Nile Rodgers and Daft Punk.
“Pharrell, in particular I think, is a real bridge between many worlds and, you know, for me, it was like bringing my work to music. I just think everybody sees that energy and it’s a positive one, and they want in,” he said.
Jeremy Scott said he was apartment-hunting in Paris, but was coy on the reason for his return to the French capital after a 20-year break. “I’m going to put my sunglasses back on now after that question. I walked myself into a little hole,” demurred the designer, who recently left the helm of Moschino.
He was not surprised by Vuitton’s decision to appoint a global music star as its creative director of menswear.
“Fashion and entertainment are so hand in hand and I’ve always thought of my shows as a show, which is entertainment,” Scott said. “And he’s someone who’s shown over a long time so much passion for design and doing these works with Vuitton in the past, to Adidas who I also have a collaboration with, so it doesn’t seem like a such a big leap in that way.”
Andelman noted that unlike Joopiter’s inaugural auction in New York City last October, this one featured hardly any of the performer’s personal items, with the exception of a couple of pairs of sneakers, including the coveted kicks Williams designed with Chanel and Adidas in 2017, which were launched at Colette.
Instead, she commissioned special pieces, like a mosaic tile artwork by anonymous French street artist Invader. “It’s very rare for him to agree to be part of a group project,” she noted. “His work fetches high values at auction but the provenance is never certain. When it comes from him, at least there can be no question.”
Several of the artists are from Williams’ hometown of Virginia Beach, Virginia, including Michael Kagan, who contributed a one-of-a-kind “Astronaut” statue inspired by his collaboration with streetwear brand Billionaire Boys Club, priced between $60,000 and $90,000.
“This hovers between a collectible and fine art,” he said, noting that streetwear fans have latched on to his limited-edition pieces. “It’s cool that all these fans of Pharrell kind of use it to get introduced into the fine art world, because I feel like the fine art world sometimes can be a little bit awkward and a little bit intimidating.”
For Dutch artist Pieter Ceizer, the evening proved to be fantastic exposure as guests posed in the entrance in front of his “Rise” sculpture shaped like a Vulcan salute, which appeared to set off a spate of hand gestures, the “peace” sign proving the most popular among this crowd of skate bros.
“It’s really cool and amazing to be among so many big names, and Pharrell, and everything that kind of you grew up on, and then suddenly you’re a part of it. So it’s like my youth becoming reality,” he marveled.
From her own closet, Andelman donated one of Williams’ earliest sneaker designs from 2004 to be sold with a teddy bear jacket by Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, who dyed the cuddly toys in camouflage tones and added them to an M60 field jacket, in a nod to the teddy bear coat he created in the ‘80s.
“It’s great to be able to pay tribute to the genius of Pharrell,” said the designer, whose creations have been worn by the likes of Jay-Z, Drake and LL Cool J.
“Pharrell has nothing left to prove. He has moved crowds and he has music, he has a very specific style. He’s a good designer,” he added. “He’s not just a gentleman. He has something very charismatic and he can take people behind him, so that’s why I think Louis Vuitton has done the best job.”
The exhibition and gift shop will be open to the public until Saturday, while online bidding continues at joopiter.com until June 27.
Launch Gallery: Inside the Just Phriends Event
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