Pharrell opens Vuitton’s monogram anniversary year with cinematic menswear show

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PARIS (AP) — Pharrell Williams opened a celebration year for Louis Vuitton's monogram — marking the house’s 130th anniversary of its most recognizable signature — with a Fall-Winter 2026 men’s show that was equal parts brand pageant and movie set.

Inside the Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris, the guests encircled the grassy runway.

At its center sat a glass-walled, minimalist apartment — part bedroom, part display box — where models kept entering and exiting like characters crossing movie scenes.

It was also a celebrity-heavy room, with a front row mixing music, film and online fame — SZA, Usher, Future, Jackson Wang and others, plus a runway debut to seal the crossover: BamBam of Korean boy band GOT7.

The soundtrack did as much scene-setting as the set.

A gospel choir and full orchestra performed live from the balconies, lifting what could have been a straightforward runway lap into something closer to a staged sequence: romantic, controlled, faintly grand.

On the clothes, Williams stayed inside his Vuitton DNA: readable from a distance, richer up close, and always tethered to the idea of travel and the house’s heritage goods.

This season’s lens was 1970s ease spiked with utility. The palette sat firmly in autumn-tonal grays, browns, black, denim, cream — then broke into jolts of bubblegum pink, baby blue and emerald green that kept the mood from turning too polite.

It was Vuitton in full brand mode: monogram year messaging, hero outerwear, high-gloss accessories, and a set built for cameras.

Silhouettes ran long and loose, with baggier trousers that swung into an A-line sweep; suits were often topped with parka coats, a high-low collision that has become one of his signatures.

The details — always his style argument — did the work.

Shirts flashed with glimmering surfaces.

Bows and jabot-style collars delivered the 70s note without going costume.

Utility came through in the hardware language: ties, toggles, belts, zippers; faux-fur collars that read both functional and decorative.

Patent Oxford shoes added a hard, glossy punctuation under the softer shapes.

A monogrammed puffer arrived as the obvious anniversary-era hero item.

Williams also pushed a slightly “undone” finish — wrinkled tops that looked intentionally lived-in rather than sloppy — while widening the fit menu beyond the season’s broader swing toward slimness: skin-tight knits, cleanly fitted suits and oversized tailored shorts.

Then came the Vuitton wink at travel as culture-object: an Art Nouveau travel case in stained glass, rolled through on a trolley — absurd, beautiful, and perfectly on-message for a house that still sells the idea of departure as luxury.