This was the chockablock 400-level section of the collection: the section for the Nigo-ologists and their Pharrell-ospher classmates. If you didn’t spend the early 2000s reading Hypebeast.com or brushing up on videos of Nigo’s clothing warehouse (this man owned Pee-wee Herman’s suit, folks!), at least some of it would be lost on you.
As if to aid the audience, a phalanx of milky white cubes on the runway turned clear at the denouement of the show, revealing a “visual history of Pharrell and Nigo’s journey.” That history included Billionaire Boys Club varsity jackets, the dimpled 10-gallon Vivienne Westwood hats that were once a Williams signature and Louis Vuitton sacks of all shapes.
Some items will be available at auction starting Friday, on Joopiter, Mr. Williams’s auction site. Mr. Williams — a designer/music producer/skin-care magnate/hospitality entrepreneur/Lego movie star — never lets an opportunity for corporate synergies pass him by.
Of course, Louis Vuitton, at its globe-spanning scale, cannot rely solely on wistful streetwear geeks. And so as this collection marched on, it unspooled to target Vuitton’s can-be-anyone-as-long-as-he’s-rich clientele.
There were walking coats in English checks, distressed ball caps and straight-up chinos. But also crystal-kissed pink cardigans, a leather hoodie made of serpentine patchwork and kooky Coogi-looking sweaters.
A Louis Vuitton show without at least a baker’s dozen bags would be like Paris without traffic, and so we were presented with cherry-blossom pink duffels, coffin-size trunks, puny rectangular pouchettes and grocery-store-style logo totes.
By the end, it was an aimless but agreeable array of stuff, one that will, undoubtedly, find its way to shopper’s closets — and most likely, for Mr. Arnault, that’s a display worth flying back for.
