Theorizing the Third Generation of Fashion Designers: The Case of Pharrell Williams at Louis Vuitton

Abstract

This article delves into the implications of celebrity-driven fashion brands in the 21st century. Initially, it traces the evolution of the first generations of traditional fashion designers from the 19th and 20th centuries, highlighting how designers serve as a simplified reference point, as they aggregate the intricate processes of fashion creation under a public persona. Subsequently, employing a close reading and visual analysis methodology, I examine the case of musician Pharrell Williams in his role as creative director at Louis Vuitton. I argue that celebrities taking on roles as fashion designers represent a new generation in this field. This shift is an inevitable culmination of the “celebrification” that traditional designers have undergone over the years. I further argue that celebrity-driven brands introduce a diverse offering in terms of taste, experience and image. By integrating fashion with entertainment, celebrities enable brands like Louis Vuitton to reorganize as a “Cultural Maison.” These celebrities, outsiders penetrating high-end fashion, exploit the so-called democratic and hybrid logic of social media, and gradually overshadowing the cultural significance of traditional designers, pushing them behind the scenes. This shift challenges and may even redefine our understanding of what constitutes the cultural role of fashion designers.

Keywords:

• fashion designer
• mediatization
• celebrity culture
• social media
• couturification

Introduction

In June 2023, Paris witnessed a significant moment in the world of fashion. The month marked the debut runway show of Pharrell Williams, the newly appointed creative director of menswear at the renowned fashion house, Louis Vuitton. While every first collection in the world of luxury garners attention on social media and beyond, this one gained particular interest with throngs of fans attempting to catch a glimpse of the star-studded event on Pont Neuf (Louis Vuitton, n.d.).

Williams is a well-known musician and the winner of numerous awards, including several Grammys. However, he is not a 'real' designer. Despite co-founding streetwear brands and collaborating with renowned designers in the past, Williams lacks formal education in fashion or design (Giulione 2023, Amed 2023, Johnson 2023). As such, his appointment at Louis Vuitton was considered unconventional and provocative, as the company had typically employed individuals with stronger fashion or design backgrounds in these positions since the 1990s. Louis Vuitton justified their choice by stating that “the various worlds he explores aligns with Louis Vuitton’s status as a Cultural Maison,” responsible for experiences beyond fashion and lifestyle (emphasis is mine) (LVMH 2023).

The appointment sparked controversy on social media (Instagram), and raised the interest of journalists (Johnson 2023, Amed 2023), with some commenters criticizing it as an act fueled by popularity rather than artistic merit. However, Williams is not an exception but rather another notable example of an emerging trend. The end of the second decade and the beginning of the third decade of the 21st century saw a proliferation of celebrities entering the fashion industry, taking on the role of traditional fashion designers in fashion houses or forming their own fashion brands.

While celebrity involvement in fashion is not new, the appointment of Williams and other contemporary examples differ from celebrity brands of the past. What sets this wave of celebrity-driven brands apart is their acceptance as legitimate creators within “capital-F” fashion, competing in contemporary and luxury markets traditionally occupied by brands associated with fashion designers or quality clothing manufacturers: Kanye West has collaborated with Adidas, Gap, and Balenciaga under his Yeezy brand on long-standing mutual projects; Kim Kardashian collaborated with Dolce & Gabbana and Fendi as a creator, while also being featured on Time Magazine’s list of 100 most influential companies of 2023 (Instagram); Rihanna developed her Fenty beauty and fashion empire with support from LVMH; Dua Lipa presented a co-branded resortwear collection with Versace, including taking a bow at the end of the fashion show with Donatella Versace.

Although fashion creatives were acknowledged before modernity, scholars place the birth of the fashion designer as a distinct profession in the 19th century, associated with Charles Frederick Worth and the rise of haute couture (Steele 2017; Breward 2014; Wilson 2013). However, the answer to what fashion designers are and what they do is far from stable, ranging from creative direction and innovation to business operations. Noting the various facets of the profession, and the intensified process of “celebrification” (Driessens 2013; Jerslev 2014) that fashion designers have undergone over the last 150 years, this article sees fashion designers as a simplified and humanized reference point, aggregating, under a single public image and persona, the complex process of fashion making and a variety of products and experiences.

By framing and articulating the earlier generations of fashion designers, and conducting a case study on Pharrell Williams at Louis Vuitton using a qualitative methodology based on close reading, social media analysis and visual analysis, I argue that Williams represents a new generation of fashion designers. This marks a radical change in the modern paradigm of fashion.

Building on Pamela Church Gibson’s observation (2014, 2019) about a divided fashion system—one centered around high-end fashion designers and the other mainly around young popular female stars—the celebrities mentioned are initiating a new hybrid fashion system, creating “cultural brands.” These hybrid brands, led by celebrities from outside traditional western circles of fashion design, are far less limited compared to older generations of fashion designers. They offer diversity in terms of taste and product, crossing the lines of Eurocentric fashion as formulated by fashion designers while blending in overlapping fields of experience such as entertainment, making them appeal to a wider global audience. Williams’ debut runway shows for Louis Vuitton demonstrated how contemporary fashion, personal style, and music concerts have been mixed, expanding the fashion house’s offerings far beyond clothes and leather goods and into popular culture.

Theorizing this new stage in fashion through the lens of mediatization and Gilles Lipovetsky’s writing on the democratization of fashion (1994 [1984]), I further argue that these hybrid brands materialize the diverse logic of social media. Social media, as a so-called democratic platform, not only allows for the participation of every connected user but also aggregates media and information that might have been considered random in the past, such as musical talent and fashion designing. By doing so, social media welcomes creative outsiders such as Williams into the fashion industry, enabling them to foster a global desire that resonates with diverse communities and social classes, while reenforcing the position of Louis Vuitton and the celebrity himself.

While allowing fashion to intersect with other fields and broaden offerings, this “couturification” process profoundly impacts the traditional concept of the fashion designer. Even though it results from the “celebrification” of the traditional designer, it also challenges their cultural significance as unique tastemakers and reference points, altering the answer to the question of what a modern fashion designer is. At the same time, it helps brands to create a superstructure of a fashion system that resonates with different communities around the world through the new digital media.

The cult of the fashion designer

The answer to the question of what a fashion designer is, or what fashion designers actually do, should be relatively easy, considering the vast number of fashion design programs around the world and the prominence of fashion designers in popular media. However, As Tiziana Ferrero-Regis notes while reflecting on the evolution of the role today – “the question of what is a fashion designer remains open” (2008, 1).

The vagueness surrounding the concept of a fashion designer is because it is constantly being shaped as part of modern fashion and the gap between how fashion designers are communicated and treated by the media and their actual methods of work. While having some similarities, there are many differences between the early fashion designers of the 18th and 19th centuries and those of today, in terms of education, media value, promotion and sales methods, and the branded product itself (Faerm 2021).

Despite considering fashion as global and universal, with different fashion systems that overlap, coexist, and nourish each other (Cheang 2021, Craik 1994, Welters and Lillethun 2018, Steele 2017), the development and establishment of the modern fashion designer is typically explained within a modern European context. Historically and generally speaking, up until modern times and the industrial revolution, the presentation, invention, and adoption of new styles were unsystematic and resulted directly from negotiations between the client, the maker, and the available inventory of fabric and materials (Breward 2014; Palmer 2005).

Improved methods of industrial-scale production in Europe from the 18th century onwards, coupled with the emergence of shopping arcades, passages, and department stores, as well as the advent of dedicated fashion media outlets, such as the 1678 fashion supplement to the French gazette Mercure de France (Nevinson 1967; Tortora and Marcketti 2015; Benjamin 2019; Breward 2014), indicated that participation in “capital-F” fashion could be relevant to a broader urban audience and organized in a consolidated and systematic manner. As a result of the new conditions mentioned above, the 18th and 19th centuries marked the establishment of the fashion designer as a distinct profession and designer fashion as a specific category.

Exploring literature about the evolution of fashion designers shows how the general concept and the understanding of the designer has been culturally constructed. In academia and in popular media designers are treated as an organizing axis of a very complex industry, emphasizing the artistic nature of the job, as well as personal manners, often at the expense of others involved in the process of fashion making and marketing.

The19th century is commonly associated with the birth of haute couture, which initiated a hierarchical and authoritarian system that positioned the designer at the top (Breward 2014; Lipovetsky 1994 [1987]; Rosa 2013; Reinach 2017; Boucher 1987; Coleman 2005; Reilly 2021; Steele 2017). Elizabeth Wilson describes Charles Frederick Worth of that time as “the first truly modern dress designer” (2013, 32). James Laver, on the other hand, uses a softer tone, seeing Worth as part of a “new race of fashion designers” who transformed the world of couture (2012, 185).

The answer to what was so novel about the method being described overlaps with the answer to what haute couture is and what a fashion designer is. Accordingly, reviewing the sources mentioned above yields a wide range of answers. What is repeated is the shift in the dictation of taste and style, an idea that can be simply put as “who tells whom what to wear, and gets credit for it.” In contrast to the past, where the client instructed the tailor or seamstress, designers positioned themselves as an authority on new fashions rather than as an executor, aligning with other creative forces such as artists (Welters 2011b; English 2013). While this position puts pressure on the designer to repeatedly present grand ideas to justify and demonstrate a unique talent that surpasses their client’s imagination, it is also associated with time and duration; the designer is conceived and mediated as an innovator or leader responsible for creating ideas before being directly asked by a customer (Lipovetsky 1994 [1987]; Steele 2017).

Presenting fashionable ideas and organizing them in a seasonal system is a major aspect of the designer’s work. But this romantic and glorifying perspective relies too heavily on a perception that conceives of the designer as a god-like force capable of changing the course of fashion. What is often overlooked, mainly in mass media, are the constant commercial negotiations, the fact that the client ultimately decides whether to purchase the garment, and that the designer is in constant dialogue with market forces. Moreover, this perspective fails to explain the fact that most designers tweak popular ideas at the product level rather than presenting something that is completely innovative.

The role and function of the fashion designer should be understood as a business model and management method as well. Among other commentators, Gilles Lipovetsky (1994 [1987]), Sara Elisabeth Hume (2003), Christopher Breward (2014) and Elizabeth Anne Coleman (2005), refer to the fact that fashion designers operate in a manner that is similar to, or in conjunction with, the modern industrial production line. The ability to dictate taste or at least offer fashionable options relies on the ability to create a complex initial garment that can be reproduced for several clients using appropriate means.

From a practical standpoint, what distinguishes a fashion designer as such is education, typically evidenced by a certificate, and practice in the described system. Fashion designers are trained in numerous programs and schools that offer a blend of courses. An historic example is “L’Ecole de la Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne” (French Institute of Fashion, n.d.), which has been dedicated to the education of couture since 1927. Like guilds, fashion design training often includes internships (Kozar and Hiller Connell 2015; Faerm 2012).

The fashion designer, as a modern concept based on the systematic replication of designs, is multifaceted. Each facet differs or even contradicts the others: the innovator, the businessman, the public persona. Writing on the success of Paul Poiret in America, who received the nickname “king of fashion,” Nancy J. Troy observes that “Poiret’s denial of any commercial intent, his disdain for advertising and publicity, was part and parcel of his self-construction as an artist and an aristocrat, an individualist who rejected fashion because it smacked of mass production” (2002, 129).

The cultural cult of the designer lies in how this role is attributed by the media and projected to society, in the fuzing of these different facets together into a solid concept which is less concerned with what the designer does, or how is organized, but by how is mediated and promoted – that the entire process of design, operation, and production was credited to a single persona. The construction and creative direction that were previously divided between the client and service providers and makers are now unified under one name and one vision – a 'famed' person who usually does not participate in the labor itself and who merges their own ideas with clients' needs and production line abilities. The introduction of the label – a small rectangular piece of fabric attached to the garment and usually bearing the designer’s name – can be interpreted in this context. Contrary to the common assumption that the label was initially a way for designers to sign their garments in a manner reserved for true artists, like painters signing their work, the efficiency of the label lies in materializing this position of unification.

From a theoretical perspective, the fashion designer should be understood as a singular point of reference, serving as a specific and simplified humanized metaphor for a complex operation. In the same way monotheism consolidated multiple and distinct deities that had been worshiped previously into a single deity, once the designer– and later their brands - credited the final design to themselves, and attached a label to it, they deliberately concealed or overshadowed the notion of the entire production chain and the market forces who shape them.

Global scale and umbrella brands

Globalization, improved media outlets, and large-scale, remote-controlled production took center stage during the 20th century. Due to forces that have been described as “the rise of consumerism” (English 2013) or the “democratization of fashion” (Lipovetsky 1994 [1984], Blaszczyk and Pouillard 2018, Crane 2000), which transformed fashion into a popular commodity, designers established local and international brands, moving on from the relatively limiting haute couture in terms of taste and product, adopting new means of creating and distributing designer fashion to a wider and more international audience (Gibson 2012, Pouillard 2018). Some tried to preserve the aristocratic notion of couture by experimenting with methods such as wholesale couture in the 1950s, which allowed others to copy their seasonal patterns (Tregenza 2021). Others amplified methods that had been relatively marginal to couture until the mid-20th century. One significant example is the creation of ready-to-wear garments in standardized sizes under their names and labels. Another example, which often intersects with the former, is the adoption of a licensing system, meaning the sale of the rights to design, produce and distribute an array of products under the designer’s name and logo - from garments to cosmetics to home décor and even cars and cigarettes - to specialized manufacturers in different markets (Dike 2015, Bide 2020, Merlo and Perugini 2020, Breward 2014, Lipovetsky 1994 [1987], Faerm 2021).

At the substantial risk of losing control of the final product in terms of design, quality, and positioning, designers gained a chance to exploit their reputations and create commodities for a global audience. That led to dramatic changes in production and manufacturing. Instead of local ateliers or factories that were usually under the tight supervision of the designer, production moved across borders or offshore, and most of the work was subcontracted (Thomas 2019, Pouillard 2019).

Like in many other post-modern industries, it is common practice to design in one place and construct the garment far away. This only adds to the complexity. “One effect of the subcontracting system is that… retailers may lose track of who their suppliers are,” says Veronique Pouillard (2019, 143). Numerous products have an entangled and mysterious production process, but the fashion designer – as a persona, an image, a label, a brand – is mediated and imagined as being close to and attached to the product, still serving as the central point of reference, aggregating these multiple networks into a simplified notion.

Crediting the design to a singular entity and materializing it through a label bearing a name, has become a powerful marketing and branding tool to the point that label-free designer garments are nearly impossible to find (Choufan and Tila-Cohen 2023). In many cases, the label - which can be a tag, a graphic logo or some other instrument - differentiates objects of similar design by different brands or acts as an aggregator of social and esthetic values that are communicated in various ways (Reilly 2021; Bourdieu 1984 [1992], Lury 2004). Nonetheless, the notion of the brand and an associated designer is what binds together different products for which the designer is credited; it is the context.

A major aspect of a fashion object’s social and economic value is determined not only by its unique design or quality but also by labeling techniques and the perceived persona or image of the designer who is associated with it. Put bluntly, designers can persuade us to wear their fashionable designs instead of going back to instructing seamstresses, because they appear knowledgeable, famous, artistic and elitist, or at least eccentric. Their so-called genius is intertwined with drama and performance.

Celebrification

Self-promotion, public exposure, and maintaining a certain authoritarian image have counted as essential parts of a fashion designer’s role since the beginning (Gibson 2012). They are among the main aspects that cross the different generations. “‘Pretention’ describes Worth’s self-presentation, which was perceived by both friends and critics, albeit with different understandings, as arrogant, overreaching, and judgmental,” concludes Abigail Joseph (2014, 258), a description that matches the designer’s own appearance. Maintenance of a grand persona is a useful tool for justifying the designer’s role, and fuses the different facades of operation (Moine 2017).

Expanding this line of thought, and going back to an earlier argument, the acquisition and projection of this unique position enables the designer to steal the limelight; to distance themselves from the production chain, which is an essential part of the operation, while taking an active role in marketing and advertising the product. The fact that designers often do not operate under their own name, but rather, under the name of a fashion house, such as Karl Lagerfeld for Chanel, serves as evidence of the importance of having a vivid character in the 'designer fashion' category, who can give interviews and take a bow at the end of a fashion show as the face of the whole operation.

During the 20th century, designers and the fashion industry underwent a process of “celebrification” (Driessens 2013; Gibson 2019) that reached its height with the “star designer” of the end of the millennium; a process that widened the gap between “artistic innovators” and ordinary service providers, and that underscored the singularity of the former – “a tension exists in this creative process between individual achievement and collective effort behind the production of deliverables in the supply chain” (Peirson-Smith 2013, 173).

Celebrification can be understood simply as “becoming celebrities” by using and exploiting popular media power, but it is actually a complex process that involves a “dynamic interaction between roles… personality… and image” (Jerslev 2014, 173, emphasis in original). It is an ongoing negotiation between the persona and what it is doing, and the public sphere regarding how the persona is seen and conceived. As Olivier Driessens notes, celebrification consists of “changes at the individual level,” and since it is an essential part of capitalist reality, it also involves the commodification of two aspects – the personality itself and products that it helps to sell (Driessens 2013, 643).

While the commodification of fashion designers is realized in products bearing their name, as demonstrated in the previous chapter, change on an individual level comes into being by aligning themselves with artists at first, and later by adopting and copycatting techniques and gestures that characterize famous public figures such as TV personalities, musicians, movie stars, and others whose job is performing in public. Moving outside atelier walls and beyond glossy fashion magazines, these techniques involve visibility and willingly being subjected to gossip.

As a visual analysis and close reading show, following the “king of fashion,” who celebrated his publicity through known parties and events (Troy 2002), Coco Chanel’s image circulated through famous photographs, such as the ones by Robert Doisneau, and caricatures, making her the face and muse of her own designs, and a figure who was known on both sides of the Atlantic. Yves Saint Laurent submitted his naked body for a perfume advertisement at the beginning of the 1970s (Cafleurebon 2016), merging his most personal self with his role as a tastemaker for the sake of commerce, blurring the lines between the three while allowing the public to forge for gossip. That was a powerful moment that paved the way for numerous examples of designers playing themselves on magazine covers, in fashion editorials or on talk shows.

Among other observers, Dana Thomas, writing on Alexander McQueen and John Galliano as star designers of the end of the millennium, shows how designers were appointed to key roles by conglomerates not only for their capabilities in design and fashion but also due to their ability to gain public attention (2015). Soon enough, designers started to take on roles that promised them publicity and fame but were far removed from the practice of designing fashion. “Michael Kors needed Project Runway like a sewing machine needed a needle,” declares Teri Agins (2014, 129), portraying that designer’s path from a relatively unknown fashion designer to a reality TV star. In a similar manner of observing celebrity-style but on a different type of medium, Olivier Rousteing, Balmain’s creative director, acquired international recognition by using Instagram and rubbing shoulders with reality TV and social media stars. His Instagram profile (9.6 million followers as of July 2023) shows that alongside presenting his work, Rousteing often plays the same role that the celebrities he dresses play – walking on the red carpet, being “paparazzied,” arriving at fashion shows or participating in TV shows. That creates a double looking-glass reality – the designer mimics the social media influencer ideal, an ideal that “frequently mimics conventions of fashion photography” (de Perthuis and Findlay 2019, 3).

Crossing the lines to celebritydom, traditional designers tend to maintain their association and commitment with the initial essence of fashion designers and their related social distinctions regarding taste and class. The notion of haute couture as a selective and important practice is still often referred to even when no haute couture practice is in sight. For example, the hashtag #couture on Instagram has 17.5 million posts attached to it as of August 2023. Scanning them briefly shows a combination of Vogue magazine covers, sewing techniques, and numerous models wearing exaggerated and expensive-looking outfits. Moreover, bold labeling techniques of fashion houses, often referred to as Logomania (Choufan 2018), serve as means to create recognizable status symbols signaling consumer participation in what designers have to offer. On the other hand, designers often preserve their connection with the “high” world of art, culture or craft, such as the Belgian designer Dries Van Noten, who is in constant dialogue with artists and craftspeople, or Maria-Grazia Chiuri of Dior, who collaborated with feminist writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

Couturification

The process of celebrification is an essential part of the fashion designer as a cultural concept. It is what makes it valid. It serves to acquire prestige, media attention, and differentiation in times of generic products, but also as means to maintain the proximity between the designer and the end product, to overshadow the production chain, to consolidate multiple networks under the notion of a single persona, and to build a context between different products under the same label. While this process has intensified over time, there is also a strong relationship between the type of media that is available at any given time and the role designers have taken, from artists in the 19th century to television stars in the 20th century to social media influencers and reality TV stars in the 21st century.

The relationship between fashion and celebrities is complex. Designers have always needed socialites and public figures for promotion. As Troy shows, mixing up the fashionable and the popular and blurring the lines between different spheres was a common practice for designers such as Poiret, who dressed actresses, made them into mannequins, and used mannequins as actress in reverse at the beginning of the 20th century (Troy 2001). However, since designers historically strived to be considered as artists who were responsible for innovation if not for the sublime, they also feared being “guilty by association” with mass culture.

Pamela Church Gibson illustrated a “divided system” that emerged in the second half of the 20th century, at least in the west if not elsewhere (2014, 2019). On one hand, there is the system of fashion designers, production, and marketing, focusing on the concept of seasonal change, taste, and an orderly process of inspiration and concrete result, which often finds its roots in haute couture, art or conceptualized sub-cultures. On the other hand, a new, “rival” system evolved around popular young female celebrities and their style – from Paris Hilton to Jessica Simpson to Kim Kardashian; a style that Gibson describes as “pornostyle,” meaning a highly sexualized appearance based on what can be considered in certain circles as cheap and tacky, even if expensive to achieve. However, during the last decade, the two systems have come closer, or intertwined at times; as exemplified by Kim Kardashian participating in Balenciaga’s runways and campaigns, high-end fashion adopting glamorous celebrity style while popular media and reality TV celebrities were becoming accepted as legitimate fashion leaders.

Although briefly mentioning Kanye West’s success with his fashion line Yeezy, Gibson mainly focuses on female celebrity style and body, and the production of provocative taste, and observes it through a feminist prism, noting how the Kardashian sisters exploited new digital platforms to achieve celebrity status backed with “product placements” in accordance with their specific look (2019, 71; 2015). Teri Agins portrays a similar path when describing how Jessica Simpson and Sarah Jessica Parker became mid-market fashion brands at the turn of the millennium highlighting how celebrity image is translated into products (2014), far from the tradition of the fashion designer who achieved supremacy by association with haute couture, art and snobbery. During the first decade of the 21st century, singers and actors such as the Olsen sisters in 2006 (The Row) or Victoria Beckham in 2008 crossed the lines and introduced labels that are now considered high-end fashion. However, these moves should be understood as second careers, after they ditched their previous occupations.

The third generation of fashion designers: the case of Pharrell Williams at Louis Vuitton

This process of “couturification,” in the sense of non-designers becoming fashion brands, has gained steam in recent years. By researching the case of Pharell Williams at Louis Vuitton during 2023–24, it is becoming clear that celebrities are not only accepted as important fashionable figures or as general fashion brands for the masses, but they are also penetrating the sphere of designer and luxury fashion as innovating creators whilst still holding on to other duties, as musicians, actors or TV stars. Following this research, I would like to argue that this process has radical implications on the cultural role of the fashion designer. The couturification of celebrities is a direct outcome of the celebrification of the fashion designer, but it also offsets the cultural importance of the fashion designer as a tastemaker and as a singular reference point, thereby altering the answer to the question of what a modern fashion designer is. I further argue, extending Palmer’s observations about rival and divided taste and style systems, that around these celebrities a new hybrid and mixed system is emerging, which is swallowing the previous two, creating what Louis Vuitton calls a “Cultural Maison.” These hybrid brands, with a celebrity coming out on top from outside of the traditional Western circles of fashion design, offer a diverse product in terms of taste and the product itself which is not confined only to material fashionable goods or to a particular lifestyle, crossing the boundaries of the Eurocentric fashion system as formulated over the last 150 years, making it appeal to a wider global crowd. In doing so, these hybrid brands are materializing and exploiting the logic of social media, which is based on the notion of accessibility, overlapping information, mixed media spheres and online public participation.

From couturification to cultural brand

The star designers of the 1990s and 2000s, such as Tom Ford or John Galliano, and later on, the participation of fashion designers in the sphere of reality TV and of social media influencers, prove that fashion designers can perform as celebrities on a global scale. Over this period of time, celebrities from the entertainment industry walked the same path, but in the opposite direction, moving from a position of being dressed by designers, to being models, to becoming collaborators, to initiating fashion brands, to becoming designers producing “capital-F” fashion. The outcome is a unique situation in which designers and entertainment celebrities have started to switch places (Choufan 2019) and to compete in the same category, indicating the commercial potential of the fashion industry.

Pharell Williams has been chosen as the primary case study to investigate the contemporary trend of celebrities as fashion designers and brands and the implications this has on the cultural role of fashion designer. Williams was selected due to his central position in contemporary fashion and his interactions with high-end fashion and leading fashion designers and brands. He is a prime example of couturification, moving from being a notable “fashionisto” to the position of a fashion entrepreneur and a fashion designer. Qualitative research was conducted in 2023–24, using a methodology that comprised close reading and interpretation, visual analysis and analyzing discourse on social media. The data sources included media publications and public interviews, collections, photographs, fashion editorials, fashion shows, videos, and Instagram posts and accounts. These materials, most of which are circulated on social media, have been chosen because the argument deals with how designers have been mediated and addressed, and how fashion operates online.

Williams is a Grammy award-winning musician, who started his career in the 1990s (Grammy Awards, n.d.). He co-founded the music production duo The Neptunes, was the lead vocalist of the band N.E.R.D and served as a music producer on numerous projects. As of 2023, Williams has released three solo albums and collaborated with Daft Punk and Nile Rogers on the hit singles Get Lucky and Lose Yourself to Dance.

Since the early stages of his career in music, Willams showed a great interest in fashion. However, he lacks official fashion education. Analyzing his personal style, he is often documented in public in a mixture of oversize streetwear clothes, such as sweatshirts or military inspired garments, and luxury items such as fur coats and extravagant jewelry, like custom designed Tiffany & Co. diamond studded sunglasses (Giulione 2023). Beyond the love for dressing up, the singer has taken an active role in fashion since the beginning of the millennium. In 2003 he co-founded the streetwear brand Billionaire Boys Club with Japanese fashion designer Nigo, followed by the introduction of the brand Ice Cream (BBC Ice Cream, n.d.).

The couturification of celebrities is demonstrated by Williams’ escalating entanglement in the traditional fashion system since 2004. In the field of streetwear and sneakers, Williams has collaborated, under various names, with Reebok, Nike, Bape, Timberland and G-Star, producing dedicated capsule collections (Sneaker Freaker, 2023; G Star Raw, 2016). However, it was Adidas who benefited the most (Adidas, n.d.). Alongside presenting mutual hit designs, such as colorful versions the familiar Superstar sneakers (Jones 2016), Williams formed the label Humanrace, with sneakers and sportswear designed and distributed in collaboration with the giant German brand.

The interaction of Williams with streetwear reflects his personal taste and his affiliation with hip-hop and R&B music. Nonetheless, in the sphere of high-end and luxury fashion, which is usually associated with established and trained fashion designers, things were less obvious. In 2004 Williams and Nigo were invited by Marc Jacobs, then the creative director of Louis Vuitton, to create a mutual collection of sunglasses for the famed French firm. In an interview for GQ, Williams noted how unusual it was for non-designer, coming outside the traditional system, to participate in “real” fashion - “At that time, musicians were only used here and there in campaigns, especially Black ones… there was no allowing people who looked like us to come in behind the curtain and go design and make things.” (Johnson 2023)

Following another collaboration with Louis Vuitton in 2008, Williams’s visibility in luxury fashion increased. In 2015 he modeled for the Chanel pre-fall collection alongside Cara Delevingne, followed by a campaign for Chanel’s Gabrielle bag in 2017 (YouTube, n.d.). Willams and Chanel, under the creative direction of Karl Lagerfeld, also introduced a capsule sneaker collection with Adidas in 2017 (Chanel, n.d.), and a mutual collection dubbed “The Chanel Pharell Collection” (YouTube, n.d.) in 2019.

Williams’ penetration of the high-end fashion sphere was accomplished in 2023. On the 14th of February LVMH, which controls major luxury fashion houses, appointed Williams as the creative director of menswear at Louis Vuitton. In a brief public statement, the fashion house justified the move claiming that “The way in which he breaks boundaries across the various worlds he explores aligns with Louis Vuitton’s status as a Cultural Maison, reinforcing its values of innovation, pioneer spirit and entrepreneurship” (Louis Vuitton, n.d.) (emphasis is mine). In an interview for the Business of Fashion, Pietro Beccari, the CEO and Chairman of Louis Vuitton, elaborated on the subject– “Louis Vuitton is a multifaceted company. We are part of the life of the people in 70 countries. We have long moved beyond fabricating and selling products” (Amed 2023).

Williams’ debut runway show for Louis Vuitton took place on Pont Neuf in Paris in June 2023. A visual analysis of the photographs of the collection (Louis Vuitton, n.d.), of the live broadcast of the show, and the edited video that was published by Louis Vuitton (Youtube, n.d.), and a close reading of the credits and texts that accompany these visual materials, illustrates how Louis Vuitton is moving from being a fashion and leather goods brand to a cultural brand, touching a broader spectrum through Williams’s image. The key strategy is a hybrid approach of mixing existing categories of performance, taste, experience and product.

As the creative director of menswear, Williams is the persona to whom the collection and event is attributed. However, being at the top of the creative hierarchy blends with his other occupations. Apparently, and contrary to past creative directors at Louis Vuitton, Williams will spend only one third of his work time at Vuitton (Amed 2023), making him available to continue his career in music and elsewhere. This mix of occupations was well materialized during his debut fashion show, which was a lengthy event, far longer from the regular 15 minute stints, and which zigzagged between different spheres of cultures and genres: male and female models on the runway wearing Willaims’s designs; a soundtrack produced by Williams, which included such classical instruments as a piano and violins, as well as hip-hop; the Virginia gospel choir Voice of Fire, led by Williams’s uncle Bishop Ezekiel Williams, performing the song “Joy (Unspeakable),” featuring Willams himself; and a live performance of Williams with the rapper and producer Jay-Z.

The setting of the show itself, which was broadcast on-line on various platforms, transcended borders as well. Although fashion shows do take place, from time-to-time, outside of brick and mortar venues, Louis Vuitton’s decision to produce an immersive experience alongside Pont Neuf, a strategic and visible spot in the heart of the capital, can be interpreted as a way of seamlessly, physically and conceptually merging two categories - the fashion show and the cosmopolitan city, which is a construct of architecture, history, contemporary life and people, both locals and outsiders.

The collection itself followed the same path of hybridity, circulating between four principal pillars – Louis Vuitton emblems, sharp tailoring, streetwear, and Williams’ personal style. In contrast to the old dichotomy of dressing up or dressing down, trickle up or trickle down, which usually highlight a singular direction of diffusion, the use of the different motifs filtered through the image of Willams created a streamlined sense of inclusivity and a sense of feasibility, featuring a varied cast of models in terms of ethnicity, gender, and body types. It is worth noting that the same sense of inclusivity has been presented by Rihanna's Fenty or Kim Kardashian's Skims.

Theoretical implications: beyond the sphere of fashion

The appointment of Williams as the leading men’s fashion designer at Louis Vuitton sparked controversy. Many regarded it as a bold move by the luxury brand. “It’s the first time someone has had the daringness to pick a real worldwide star to helm a house,” Beccari, the CEO of Louis Vuitton, told GQ (Johnson 2023). The Instagram post that announced the news received more than 1 million likes and thousands of comments by August 2023 (Instagram). Along with positive feedback, some followers criticized the decision to appoint a celebrity instead of “a real designer,” arguing that he was chosen for his popularity and the influence of hip-hop music on contemporary fashion in general. In interviews, both Beccari and Williams addressed this issue: Beccari explained that it was part of a strategy that had begun during the tenure of the previous designer, Virgil Abloh, to expand the brand into other lifestyle domains (Amed 2023); Williams adopted a more political stance, stating – “As Black people on this planet, we’re used to that, telling us what you can or cannot do” (Leitch 2023).¹

Throughout the 20th century, designers were trained in designated programs and either created their own fashion brands or joined existing ones. The case of Williams at Louis Vuitton breaks this mold, and raises the question – who needs a star designer when you can have a real star?

To explore the theoretical implications of this third generation of the cultural role of the fashion designer, I ask what the musician has to offer that is better than a traditional designer. The simple and obvious answer would be – while designers strive to gain a celebrity position in global culture, artists from the entertainment industry perform better in the hall of fame. Instagram is a key marketing tool in fashion (de Perthuis and Findlay 2019) and reflects influence. A comparison of Williams’ Instagram profile (@pharrell) with globally known fashion designers shows that the musician enjoys a larger community of followers (15 million as of August 2023), compared with designers such as Oliver Rousteing (@olivier_rousteing, 9.7 million), Marc Jacobs (@themarcjacobs, 1.8 million), or Nicolas Ghesquiere, the creative director of Louis Vuitton women’s (@nicolasghesquiere, 973k). Williams has also generated a higher rate of user engagement. A sample of his Instagram posts from the Louis Vuitton show until August 2023 shows more likes and comments per post than those published by the designers mentioned above, except for one post by Oliver Rousteing of July 30, 2023, which generated fewer likes but more comments. Similar findings emerge from examining the social media performance of other celebrities who entered the fashion industry as brands or designers, such as Kim Kardashian, Rihanna or Dua Lipa.

Celebrification and couturification are processes that are affected by the media, relying on both visibility and audience. The framework of mediatization, which focuses on the transformative aspect of the media and how social actors or institutions adapt and change according to media logic or conditions, is useful for exploring the third generation. In recent years, mediatization has accounted for the changes in fashion show settings, design practices or new products such as digital clothes (Deacon and Stanyer 2014; Rocamora 2017, 2019; Mendes 2021; Choufan 2021). The placement of celebrities from the entertainment industry in positions traditionally reserved for designers is an institutional shift that reflects the inferiority of traditional designers compared with celebrities when operating in the same media space.

The processes of couturification interact with the specific conditions created by social media, which have intensified in the second and third decades of the 21st century. Unlike older forms of modern media, which were produced by a few professionals and consumed by the masses and were geographically limited, social media operates on a different infrastructure. Social media networks, which are accessible globally through networked devices and have become a prime source of information, rely on the real-time participation of users, who play the roles of both producers and consumers of content (Klinger and Svensson 2015; van Dijck and Poell 2013).

As an agent of globalism, social media transcends the boundaries of nations and enables the general public to act and react, challenging older power structures and occupations on the one hand, and reenforcing others (Pedroni 2022). The real-life mechanism that underlies social media, along with algorithms that direct contact according to popularity and business plans rather than reliability or “quality” (Rocamora 2022), accounts for how fashion designers - as exemplars of invention, good taste and education – are gradually fading out. Removed from gatekeepers such as magazine editors (Welters 2011a), who select the valuable from the popular based on their artistic vision, agenda and interests, and without the constraints of a linear media, celebrities from popular music or reality TV, or those who appeal to a networked global crowd, are free to take over and reach powerful positions in other industries.

As an outcome of its real-life mechanism, social media offers a wider, dynamic spectrum of content, worlds and fashion systems: professional and personal, staged and casual, local and global, often blended together on the same profiles and feeds with no clear hierarchy of importance. Against this background, fashion designers, who aggregate different stages of fashion making and marketing under their personas, have less to offer. They are a relatively narrow and limited concept even when branching out into other categories of design and lifestyle; They are professionals who are usually bound to certain products and contexts, and organized in a seasonal system of fashion weeks and presentations.

On the other hand, celebrities such as Williams are more diverse, crossing over different occupations, and can accommodate different modes of engagement. The third generation designers mirror social media logic and offer an open playground, that combines fashion with entertainment and other services and experiences, making them and the products relevant to different interests in the global community of consumers.

For Louis Vuitton, a creative director such as Williams is an opportunity to expand the offering and create a “cultural brand,” a hybrid brand that merges the previously separated systems and removes yet another barrier between popular culture and high-end designer fashion, between online and offline consumption; a universe that is not confined to fashion, but that can accommodate multiple modes of participation in the entertainment industry; a brand that can produce bags, as well as music concerts, or that can produce films that can be bought or consumed in a store or through a smartphone, in Paris or on Instagram and YouTube.

Through this prism, Williams’s part time job at Louis Vuitton is an advantage in comparison with previous designers or creative directors, reflecting an understanding of social media logic and the need for diverse and overlapping occupations. On the other hand, led by celebrities and international brands, this open playground paves the way for nonstop global consumerism, which is not confined to material fashion objects.

The system in which previous generation designers operated was predicated on the notion of an educated prodigy who could frame what was fashionable at any given time. As a result, designers were not expected to exhibit tolerance in matters of taste. On the contrary, they were expected to be arbiters of style. However, the third generation of designers, who embody multiple worlds and are outsiders to the fashion industry, are challenging this limitation. Their dual position as outsiders to the fashion industry, yet connected to the superstructure of high-end fashion, enables them to appeal to connected audiences both within and outside the Eurocentric fashion stream, creating an appearance of inclusivity, accessibility and possibility in style, inviting consumers to consume or engage online while reinforcing the position of megabrands and celebrities.

A future in which fashion brands will mainly be built around celebrities rather than fashion designers is plausible. At the time of this research alone, new brands and collaborations of the type described here have emerged. Williams, as Louis Vuitton's creative director, multiplied this trend by collaborating in February 2024 with musician Tylor, the Creator on a mutual capsule collection for the French brand, leaving fashion designers out of sight.

This relatively new wave of fashion creators is mixing things up, with significant implications for fashion. Firstly, it alters the cultural role of the fashion designer as formulated over the past 150 years. Since the celebrities mentioned here collaborate with traditionally trained fashion designers to produce collections (Johnson 2023), designers are being pushed behind the scenes, reduced to design technocrats, stripped of aspects that had been associated with fashion designers from the beginning, such as serving as the face of the complex process of fashion making. In an ironic twist of history, “old-school” designers are now undergoing a similar process to that which seamstresses and tailors experienced in the 19th century, becoming anonymous under the personas and labels of fashion designers.

The so-called inclusivity and hybridity that celebrities can offer as designers and brands also change the notion of what a fashion designer should do. In previous generations, designers were conceived as an anchor for specific style and taste at any given time. However, in the third generation, they can accommodate a plethora of diverse goods and experiences, acting - at least ostensibly - as providers of multiple, equally good options that are suitable for a global market accessed by social media. It is worth noting that this process of fashion leaking into other domains of culture and entertainment is taking place elsewhere as well – Balenciaga introduced a VR video game in 2020 ("Afterworlds: the Age of Tomorrow"), while Gucci created an Instagram filter of digital sneakers.

Criticizing Jean Baudrillard, and to some extant Pierre Bourdieu as well, Gilles Lipovetsky analyzes the democratization of fashion, which is based on the participation of the masses and the creation of desires that enchant different social groups. In Lipovetsky’s eyes, Baudrillard sees fashion as masking “the absence of real social mobility” and its consumption as being “based on a logic of performance and social distinction… [one consumes] by virtue of prestige, status and social rank that it confers” (1994 [1987], 144–145). Although not neglecting the signifying aspects of fashion entirely, Lipovetsky understands the consumption of fashion as a personal act of satisfaction applied to different classes, as a “thirst for image and spectacle, the taste of autonomy, the cult of the body, the intoxication of sensation and novelty” (ibid, 146).

The center stage that celebrities are taking in the fashion industry as creators, and the transformation of fashion brands into cultural brands, can be reflected through the theoretical frame provided by Lipovetsky. Instead of the social distinction produced by older forms of fashion designers, celebrities as public figures and designers, and the hybrid assortment of products and experiences related to them, not only penetrate the media better as being trivialized through social media, but also offer to the public more things to 'mess around' with.

As Lipovsky notes, modern fashion, as deeply tied to capitalism, branding and popular media, creates a complex situation. At the same time as the fashion industry creates objects of desire, coveted by the masses, it also fuels a certain level of autonomy and individuality that "find their apotheosis in the democratic state" (ibid, 155). In other words, fashion and democracy, or at least the notion of democracy, nourish one another, as fashion and democracy allow a certain level of participation and individualism within a well-structured and governed society.

The third-generation designers are intensifying this somewhat paradoxical condition and moving it to a global level. Since "with stars, the fashion form shines in all its glory; seduction is at the height of its magic" (ibid, 181), celebrities as designers, now chosen by international brands and being known through social media, are creating objects of desire and entertainment, which are accessed and consumed by a vast international crowd. At the same time, the act and react mechanism of social media, which allows some sort of participation, autonomy, and expression, resonates with a democratic attitude that is controlled by conglomerates. Working together, fashion brands such as Louis Vuitton, stars such as Williams and media outlets such as Instagram, create a global infrastructure where a sense of diversity has the potential to tie together different fashion systems, transforming the cultural to cross-cultural, promising that capitalism will continue to thrive in all its power.

Conclusion

This study endeavors to delineate the evolving role of the fashion designer, emphasizing various aspects of the profession, particularly the relationship between designers and the media. Observed from a macro perspective, the prevailing trend of designers becoming increasingly accessible to broader audiences and achieving celebrity status in popular culture appears to be reversing.

Global celebrities from the entertainment sector now seem more aptly positioned for such roles in the age of social media, presenting offerings that extend well beyond mere fashion, enabling fashion to leak into other commercial domains. Consequently, these celebrity-driven brands, which interact with high-end fashion, diminish the cultural significance of traditional fashion designers, relegating them to less visible roles in the production hierarchy. Broadly speaking, the artist who ascended to stardom in the 20th century after originating in the 19th, is now being eclipsed by mainstream celebrities. Paradoxically, while figures like Williams epitomize diversity, they are instigating a new pecking order within the fashion domain, reenforcing the dominance of international brands.

Considering the emergent nature of this trend and the significant commercial stakes involved, deeper exploration of this topic is essential. The success of these ventures, the link between the gender and ethnicity of these celebrities and their newfound roles as designers, the rise of hybrid products and events, and their overarching impact all merit thorough examination.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Liroy Choufan

Liroy Choufan is a PhD candidate in the Cultural Studies Program at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and is a lecturer in the Unit for History and Philosophy of Art, Design & Technology at Shenkar College of Engineering and Design. His research deals with new fashion consumption methods in the 21st century affected by social media and hyper-globalization. He has published articles in Fashion Theory, The Fashion Studies Journal, The Business of Fashion, Wallpaper* Magazine, The Fashion Law and Haaretz. [email protected]

Notes

1 The traditional western fashion system, which has produced prominent white fashion designers throughout modern history, has a racist nature that deserves critical attention. Although issues of discrimination or the popularity of black music are relevant, they are beyond the scope of this article and should be examined in depth in another paper. This article aims to theorize the concept of celebrities who become fashion brands or who are appointed as designers at existing brands, and its findings should be relevant to other cases.