To receive the Vogue Business newsletter, sign up here.
The latest luxury streetwear collab is here. Pharrell Williams’s menswear brand Billionaire Boys Club (BBC) has teamed up with Moncler as part of efforts to elevate its offering. For Moncler, it’s a clever play that will let it tap into BBC’s community of music and fashion fans, and the buzz around Williams.
The limited-edition collection — which features some of Moncler’s signature silhouettes plus BBC’s astronaut motif — includes a wool varsity jacket with lambskin leather sleeves ($3,380), a modular down-filled puffer jacket with removable sleeves and hood ($2,340), as well as wool jumpers ($955), hoodies ($735), T-shirts ($330), tracksuit bottoms ($900) and trailgrip boots ($780). It is available on both brands’ online channels from today, as well as BBC’s stores in London, New York, Miami, Tokyo and Hong Kong.
The collection celebrates BBC’s 20th anniversary, and marks a key moment for the brand as it looks to push into luxury with a higher price point and elevated materials such as cashmere and wool. (Prices for BBC’s main collection range from $60 for a T-shirt to $900 for a leather varsity jacket.) Launched by Williams and A Bathing Ape founder and Kenzo artistic director Nigo in 2003, BBC has grown its international footprint and now has retail partners across Asia, Europe and North America, including Selfridges, Flannels and Harvey Nichols. The brand declined to share revenues.
For Moncler, the collaboration is an opportunity to tap into the hype around Williams, who made his blockbuster debut as men’s creative director for Louis Vuitton during Paris Fashion Week in June. Some 1,750 guests attended the show, including Jay-Z, Beyonce, Rihanna, A$AP Rocky, Zendaya, Naomi Campbell, Kim Kardashian, Jared Leto and Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo.
Williams presented a collection for Moncler Genius in February during London Fashion Week. Prior to that he was one of a group of designers to reimagine Moncler’s iconic Maya 70 puffer jacket for the brand’s 70th birthday in November. “Moncler has been part of Pharrell’s style history,” says Ross Westland, Billionaire Boys Club EU creative director. Discussion around a possible tie-up started taking place over two years ago, he adds.
The collection was designed in partnership by the two companies, however Moncler, which is vertically integrated, handled the manufacturing. “They work really quickly and produce a lot in-house,” explains Westland. “So, we were working through each style and idea, experimenting with different fabrics, experimenting with different print ideas, with different ways of applying our DNA into the products.”
Another draw for Moncler is BBC’s community and influence. Through Williams’s background as a producer and artist, BBC has close ties with the music industry. The brand has been mentioned in songs by Jay Z, Tyler the Creator, Childish Gambino and Kid Cudi. For the Moncler collab, BBC tapped American hip-hop duo Clipse — brothers Pusha T and No Malice — to be the face of the collection and campaign. The brothers are from Virginia, where Williams also grew up, and he encouraged them to become a hip-hop duo in the early 1990s.
Clipse will speak to the BBC community in a way that a traditional Moncler campaign would not achieve, BBC’s Westland says. Music has provided a bridge between luxury and streetwear that has proved lucrative over the past few years. “[Hip-hop] has broken down walls and smashed ceilings between class and race,” says Westland. “Being rebellious and doing what shouldn’t be done is at the core of hip-hop. The way that early artists were taking luxury brands that probably weren’t made for them, and the style that they put into it and the way they wore those products is what hit me growing up.”
Looking ahead, BBC plans to grow its retail distribution further and Westland says that new product categories are on the way including for its sub-label Ice Cream, which is gearing up to launch footwear. “There’s a lot for us still to do. This is our first time working with a luxury partner like Moncler. It’s been a good experience so hopefully the momentum carries us forward, and we can do another one and build on this.”
Comments, questions or feedback? Email us at feedback@voguebusiness.com.
More from this author:
Beauty hotspots: Beyond Byredo, Scandi fragrance brands chart paths abroad
Zimmermann sells majority stake to private equity firm Advent
France triumphant in tax-free shopping race following UK’s exit
