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Paris, France – They had a nickname for Rihanna at LVMH in Paris as his fashion project took shape. People called him "M" for "Miss." It was a hat trick to another designer who enjoyed the same nickname.
I do not think anyone is trying to pretend that Robyn Rihanna Fenty is the next Coco Chanel – again! – but there are intriguing parallels. Here is a woman who forced the giant LVMH giant, dominated by men, to hand him the keys of the treasure and to launch a brand new fashion house based 100% on his intrepid and idiosyncratic spirit. Rihanna is the Executive Director and Artistic Director of FENTY.
The one and only time Bernard Arnault made such an act of faith with fashion designer Christian Lacroix in 1987. Genius, famous cause, but never a commercial success. Rihanna already had sales of her LVMH color cosmetics collection for the first year. Half a billion dollars! However, makeup is not a very expensive product like luxury fashion. So it's a new territory, for everyone.
Rihanna's FENTY campaign | Source: courtesy
Or maybe not so much. Rihanna is an unstoppable force of nature. Eight albums, provocative collaborations, $ 125 million sold to the unit in the United States … that's what she did with her kid's dream of making music. Fashion follows closely: her mother's "badass style," Monica, and her love of makeup were at the beginning of the huge influences.
Make music, create clothes – for Rihanna, they are connected. At the launch party of FENTY in Paris on Wednesday, she explained how a new album and a new collection require "to find the DNA, to determine the" sound ", to push it further, then The version followed by doubt, eight months later. It's always good? In both cases, she said, there is pressure per second to make it not just "good". This must be THE BEST.
So confident, so brave and so courageous, Rihanna seems to believe that pressure is the last thing you would imagine feeling. "It's a facade," she insisted that her attitude is easy and winning. She's right. You replay his music, you go through the first drop of FENTY (they arrive regularly in digital form, like singles, until customers finally have the concept album of a whole collection) and you get it .
Complete control, polished and glazed by ambition. The kind that would impress upon a construction mogul from an empire such as Bernard Arnault. "It reminds me of the boss," admitted Jean Baptiste Voisin, director of strategy LVMH group, Wednesday evening. Rihanna's own taking? "I'm sure my boss is proud."
This is to say that a key Fabric In this first drop, you will find the very useful label "Weapon". It is a cotton canvas that manages a delicate balance between functional and chic. Credit strong silhouettes, shaped for Rihanna. "I'm a good-looking girl, and if I can not wear it myself, it will not work."
The first drop, the Release 5-19, is centered on the waisted hyper-feminine waist and wide shoulder, but there are also hardcore Japanese jeans and romantic poplin cotton blouse shirts with puff sleeves … and snaps. And instantly I think of Donna KaranSeven Easy Pieces, the wardrobe revolution that launched Karan's career in the eighties. The same sensual pragmatism in these clothes. Everything goes with everything.
The next drop will offer a different mood, the one that follows. The multiple facets, the construction of a composite "everywhere," Rihanna said, "like my style, sweats one day, a dress the next day." It's critical, you'll get them when you see them. " I'm greedy, "she added, she did not want to wait for six months for something she saw on a podium, and she did not expect others to do it, and LVMH did not hesitate. Arnault is not stupid, "Rihanna purred.
Its rise to the heights of LVMH is the most extravagant expression of Rihanna's need to find more creative outlets. The woman has opinions (more recently on the anti-abortion decision in Alabama), so the more platforms there are, the better. "As an immigrant to America, it was a huge journey for me to arrive in Paris," she said.
And now she has arrived? "I think that fashion, in general, has intensified its activities and clearly expressed its problems, whether it is subtle or aggressive, like Pyer Moss." with version 5-19 was his generosity. If there was something uniform – army, school – in clothing, it would suggest inclusiveness rather than militancy.
Jay Brown, the man who signed Rihanna to Roc Nation at the age of 16, has also been a father figure since in Paris. Early on, he advised him never to let anyone tell him what to do. A source of inspiration for a Bahamian teenager who is making her way into the music industry. On Wednesday, Brown was the most aware of the abilities of his first protégé. He spoke of his kindness, his patience and his "gift of giving without receiving".
And now that Rihanna was poised in the mouth of the biggest beast of fashion on the planet? "It's not a puppet," Brown replied. So I asked what else he thought she was capable of. He took his time to answer. "To be determined," he says finally.
In other words, glorious work in progress.
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