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.