Paris Fashion Week men’s AW26 officially kicked off yesterday (January 20), and this evening we witnessed the biggest show of the year so far. It’s been three years since music legend Pharrell Williams was announced as Virgil Abloh’s successor at Louis Vuitton, with today’s show marking his sixth as creative director of the brand. As per usual, LV pulled out all the stops, including a magnificent set, live gospel choir and an array of famous faces. Here’s what went down...

A TRIPTYCH OF TEASERS

This morning, the house dropped a triptych of teasers on its Instagram page to wet our whistles before the show began. First up was 20-year-old Sinners star Miles Caton in a quarter-zip and tie, who the house named “the future dandy” in the post’s caption. Next was perennial It-boy Skepta in a navy padded overcoat and tie, then there was Thai musician BamBam in a burgundy hoodie clutching some monogrammed bags.

PHARRELL WAS THINKING INSIDE THE BOX

Following last season’s starstudded spectacle (attended by both Beyoncé and Jay-Z) which took over the Pompidou, this season’s show took place at Fondation Louis Vuitton, inside a giant wooden freight crate, no less. Inside the crate, a full-scale home had been constructed at the centre. Named the ‘DROPHAUS’ and inspired by water droplets, the house was designed by Japanese architects NOT A HOTEL, alongside Pharrell.

A RARE SZA SIGHTING

With Pharrell’s impressive contact book, it seems he’s able to tease out even the rarest of celebrity show-goers. Beyoncé (who is famously choosey about which shows she attends) has attended not one but two of his shows, while this season, SZA made a surprise appearance. For context, the number of fashion shows SZA has previously attended can be counted on one hand. Elsewhere, as teased earlier today, Caton and Skepta sat front row, as did Usher, Callum Turner, Joe Keery, Stephen Graham, Future, A$AP Nast, Fourth Nattawat, Jackson Wang and Kai Cenat.

PHARRELL WANTS YOU TO WFH

When the first models appeared, they made themselves at home, laying their bags on the table and delving through the record collection. When the show really got going, the models snaked around the house on the fake lawn in front of it, before eventually heading back inside. In an unexpected twist, Pharell invited us into his home, but then presented a collection dominated by suits, ties and smart officewear. Six years after the pandemic, and he’s clearly still got the WFH bug.

CORPCORE WAS THE NAME OF THE GAME

But this is Pharrell Williams after all, so what we saw on the runway wasn’t your average take on workplace clothing. Rather than boring suits and pinstripes, Pharrell brought together the office and outdoors for a full on corpcore-gorpcore collision. Shirts and ties were the baseline, but then the designer experimented with different layers, covering them in sparkly windbreakers, patent leather jackets, faux-fur quarter zips, monogrammed puffers, peacoats, parkas and more. Elsewhere, house ambassador Pusha T walked the runway in a mottled grey peacoat, the trunks on dollies were back in stained glass variations, while standout details came in the form of oversized bows that fastened the necks of some coats and monogrammed deerstalker hats that were giving Sherlock Hypebeast-Holmes.

Scroll through the gallery at the top of the page to see the collection