Fashion Men on the Move
Josué Thomas, Balmain x Barbie, Pharrell Williams
These fashion men are making some big moves and I’ll fill you in on Balmain x Barbie, Pharrell William’s latest creative direction and an LA streetwear brand that just announced a March opening in Miami.
If you follow LA fashion, you already know that Gallery Dept.’s Josué Thomas dropped a cryptic video last year, leading us to think he was leaving fashion. After his second Lanvin launch, he went on vacation, off the grid and then crickets. He did not leave fashion and his company just announced that they’re opening a shop this month in Miami’s tony Arts District. (I love that area and would stop by one of my favorite restaurants on some rare days off when I was shooting the first season of Real Housewives of Miami.)
Near the Beverly Center, they’ve papered the streets with his $350 T shirts, spotted online.
I’m cheering for this guy and have been style spotting him since he worked for Ralph Lauren on Robertson. I saw him sitting still on a break outside, solemn. He side eyed me when I wanted to shoot his street fashion and really isn’t a showman, but we took a couple shots while he was in his head. He had a certain something. He originally had plans to launch something else and told me about his vision for Gallery Dept some years later. I was jumping in a shared Uber about five years ago and he happened to be the first pick up, already in the back seat when the car showed up, so it was serendipity that we got to catch up on the way to Santa Monica.
Everybody in fashion usually has Gallery Dept favorites, like Kelly Wearstler, above, sporting many pieces in her IG stories. Me? I’ve collected resale pieces now and then and traded them, then missed a window to snag a rare Lanvin x Gallery Dept bag, that literally had his fingerprints on it. If you want to see what I’m talking about, he’s painting one of these bags in his video below, around the 2:50 mark, from their first collaboration.
Above, from Gallery Dept’s instagram, announcing the Miami shop.
Oliver Roustering x Mattel introduced Balmain x Barbie in January, dropping 3 NFTs as well as one item on Roblox that went for over $4,000, furthering fashion’s push for metaverse relevance.
After weeks of buzz, Louis Vuitton finally made it official and announced Pharrell Williams leading the way as their Men’s Creative Director on Valentine’s Day. Camps are divided over his lack of design experience, but I personally can’t wait to see his first collection.
More about Fashion Women on the Move, to come…
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