Friday 15 December 2023, a VIP suite at the Louis Vuitton headquarters in Paris, just north of Pont-Neuf. Shortly before 10am, Marc Jacobs walks into the room. It is the first time he has been in the building since 2013, when he left his post as artistic director at Louis Vuitton.

At first, Marc seems apprehensive, nervous. It is understandable, returning to his previous workplace. What we are asking of him today feels monumental. I cannot think of a recent case, in this luxury fashion era, where a former creative or artistic director has gone back to their former label, to speak with a current incumbent on the record. Marc vapes, says he feels cold. He’s wearing a double-breasted oversized black Yves Saint Laurent coat designed by Anthony Vaccarello. The previous evening, he was at a dinner hosted by Vaccarello for Juergen Teller’s exhibition at the Grand Palais. On his feet are black ballet flats by Balenciaga. At his feet is a Birkin, the large size. He is accompanied by his husband, Char Defrancesco, as well as Nick Newbold, Marc’s personal assistant – once described by the New York Times as ‘the Marc Jacobs whisperer’ – and his PR, Michael Ariano. The VIP suite was last decorated to Marc’s tastes and hasn’t been changed since. For all Louis Vuitton’s forward-facing fabulosity, its headquarters remain untouched, an unlovable corporate warren. On the plus side, its unnavigable pokiness has allowed successive design teams the chance to take over a wing, hide away and lock the suits out. The room has been set for System’s filmed interview, with a kidney-bean-shaped sofa, two microphones ready, one for Marc, one for Pharrell Williams. Three cameras are set up, I’m nestled just to the left of a camera, out of shot, waiting.

Some brief background: in 1997, Marc Jacobs became the first ever artistic director at Louis Vuitton, his role to found ready-to-wear at the house. Before then, Vuitton had never staged a catwalk show, never produced ready-to-wear collections, and had no fashion edge. Marc brought vision, ideas, and, crucially, collaborators. In 2004, Marc worked with Pharrell on Louis Vuitton’s first ever pair of sunglasses (Pharrell and Marc each credit the other with first having the idea). By that point, Pharrell had already debuted his label Billionaire Boys Club with his friend Nigo, now the artistic director of Kenzo. At the time, menswear at Louis Vuitton was still mostly catwalk concepts, with little actual product or presence. The sunglasses, named Millionaires, remain big sellers. In 2006, Pharrell and Marc collaborated again for Louis Vuitton, this time on jewellery. It was at that time when Pharrell first met Pietro Beccari, then executive vice-president marketing and communications at Louis Vuitton, and since 2023, CEO. One of Beccari’s first actions in the top job was stating he wanted to approach Pharrell for the creative director post at Louis Vuitton menswear, a position that had been vacant since the untimely death of Virgil Abloh in 2021. Pharrell presented his first Louis Vuitton collection in June 2023, a blockbuster staged on Pont-Neuf itself. System wanted Pharrell for its Spring 2024 issue cover, and asked Marc if he would be part of the interview. Marc agreed. I’m here to moderate when needs be, to ask questions, and observe.

Pharrell walks in, punctual at 10am. There’s hardly anyone with him, just someone from Louis Vuitton. A security guard is stood outside the door. Pharrell is wearing pieces from his first Louis Vuitton collection: a navy crocodile-skin baseball jacket with his insignia for the brand, the word ‘Lovers’ with an LV logo for the ‘L’. On his legs are a pair of lean Louis Vuitton denim flares. In his hand, the faux Louis Vuitton coffee cup from that show, with its own permanently attached straw. The energy switches, and things happen swiftly. Within a minute, Pharrell is down on one knee, head bowed, hands up in prayer in Marc’s direction. At first, Marc doesn’t see, as he’s leaning over to hide his Birkin behind the sofa. Pharrell then gets his attention and he realizes what is happening. Marc relaxes, animates, his guard is down. They start talking straight away, no need for an introduction or instructions on how the interview will pan out, no beginning question from me. Immediately, it’s on.

Pharrell Williams: This moment is super surreal.

Marc Jacobs: Well, it’s surreal to me, too.

Pharrell: This guy is the fucking G.O.A.T.

Marc: No…

Pharrell: The greatest taste, the greatest designer unto yourself, the greatest taste in people that you have, and would like, to collaborate with – just G.O.A.T. level. Like people knew who Murakami is,1 but man, when you gave him that platform to do what he did, and what you guys did together, that changed his life. That changed his career. It was a magnet for so many of us who were watching the brand: ‘OK, Vuitton is a different place because… look at this!’ It changed fashion, it changed art, and you just continued to do it over and over again. I can’t believe that you gave me a shot, man.

Marc: But you can. You can. Just based on what you just said. You believe it.

Pharrell: I’m having a hard time believing it. I’m literally pinching myself all the time. From my perspective, it had never happened before. Sure, fashion brands, corporations, they were sending clothes to people in music and sending clothes to some people in rap music specifically, but nobody ever said, ‘Come on in and let’s do something.’ You opened the doors for us, and then you held the doors open.

Marc: I don’t know how to do it any other way. When I arrived in Paris, I was a foreigner. I mean, when you’re from New York and you’re given a design position at a storied French house, you are about as foreign a foreigner as they get. Typically, the French didn’t welcome you with open arms; Parisians didn’t welcome you with open arms. I just looked at what went on here creatively in another period of time, when people with different creative visions or voices worked with each other because they were all creative people. You had people like Coco Chanel, Elsa Schiaparelli, who were working with really interesting experimental musicians, set designers, artists. I don’t think they gave it a second thought. When I looked at the history of good design in Paris, especially in fashion, I was like, ‘Well that was the behaviour then, so that’s what the behaviour should be now.’

Pharrell: Do you think that at a certain point people lost that concept?

Marc: I do. There was more ownership, this idea of ‘I am the great so-and-so and I own this and I will not share the recognition with others’. What happens when you have a closed mind or when you become too caught up in yourself is that you lose the opportunity to express new things, to meet new people, to share. So I think maybe that’s what was happening a little bit in the world of fashion around that time. It was years and years of ‘I am the king of this ivory tower and I did everything; it’s me, me, me, I, I, I’. There was no ‘we’ to be found. And when things get ‘I’ oriented, it’s always a dangerous place to be. When you start saying ‘we’, and let people in, really interesting things happen.

Pharrell: That’s so true. I like how you refer to it as the ‘I’ orientation. It’s the sickness; it’s the ego. I just saw you be so collaborative and I’ve always prided myself on my collaborations. I feel like my best work was that.

Marc: And our story began with sunglasses. Ask and you shall receive. You put it out there, I was receptive. It wasn’t premeditated at all. I wasn’t searching for people to collaborate with. There’s always a reason that makes something feel valid and right. I always need that moment, that spark, that says: this is the right thing to do.

Pharrell: You just know [snaps his fingers]. I can’t say it’s only synonymous with being Aries, but you do have that Aries [snaps his fingers again]. You just know, and you commit.

The pair have been talking, unprompted, for 9 minutes 40 seconds. Pharrell suddenly turns to me.

Pharrell: Have we domineered this conversation?

Charlie Porter: No! Honestly, this is the dream.

Marc: Oh, wait a second, this isn’t it? Is this it? This is it.

This is everything I want you to talk about! The dream is also that sometimes the fourth wall is broken as well. Marc, how did you build fashion at Louis Vuitton?

Marc: It was really hard. The beginning was tough. I had a couple of people who worked with me – Camille Miceli [now artistic director of Pucci], Peter Copping, Jane Whitfield – but we were a very small team. We had to start an atelier; there was no Vuitton atelier. All the different LVMH brands operate separately, so it wasn’t like, ‘Oh, they have a great atelier over at Dior; they’re going to help us out’. It was like, no, that’s not the way it goes. We had to build it. When Mr Arnault approached me, he wanted to know what my vision of Vuitton in the future could be. I did this project where Vuitton could be a luxurious watch, Vuitton could be jewellery; it could be menswear and womenswear. It was just presenting the possibilities, as I saw it, of what the future would be for Vuitton. Back then, there was no ready-to-wear; there were only bags. And, really, the only convincing bags, in my opinion, were the luggage. When I was asked to do it and came in, we had to make everything else up; there just was no machine here for that. It was very daunting, but it was also fantastic. In the fear of a white page, we found all the things we could do, and it was Pharrell who suggested, ‘Oh, it would be great to do Vuitton sunglasses.’ I was like, ‘Great. Let’s do it together.’

Pharrell: Let me say two things: number one, it’s official, this is the house that you built. [As Pharrell says this, there’s a quiet in the room, and Marc softly says, ‘Thanks’.] Because it didn’t exist before. And we have this in common where we both self-deprecate. It was just nice to really hear you embrace that this was the house that you built, and I will for sure echo those words for the rest of my days. Second of all, the way that it actually happened with the sunglasses is that Emma [Winter, then at Vuitton, who had met Pharrell backstage at a N.E.R.D. gig] had introduced us, and you were like, ‘I like those sunglasses, did you make them?’ And I was like, ‘No, I didn’t make them’, and you were like, ‘Well, do you want to make some?’, and I was like, ‘Sure, but do you mind if I bring the guy who actually made them, Nigo?’ That’s how we met; that’s exactly what happened.

Marc: Yeah, still doesn’t seem like that’s what happened to me.

Pharrell: I promise you.

Marc: I believe you. I have a bad memory, so…

Pharrell: It’s OK! I remember feeling so lucky that you didn’t just go, fuck you. And you were still like, yeah, you can bring him.

Marc: I remember meeting Nigo with you – that I remember – and I remember some of your vocabulary. There was a phrase you said, ‘left of centre’.

Pharrell: Yes, sir.

Marc: Yes. That stuck in my head forever – that’s where you want to be, just left of centre. We talked on the phone at great length about sunglasses, and I remember having a flash, like if it were a movie you’d have this flash of an image, you said ‘Sophia Loren’s’, and I knew exactly what you meant by that style of sunglasses. And fast forward many, many years later, Virgil called me up and says, ‘We’re going to do these glasses.’ And he sent me a pair. [In 2020, Virgil Abloh introduced a new version, called the Louis Vuitton 1.1 Millionaires.]

Char Defrancesco: And I stole them…

Marc: …and he took them. It’s just nice how that life evolved.

Pharrell: I met you and we started working together in 2003. Twenty years ago, which is crazy.

Marc: It’s crazy we got them done so quickly. Then you modelled in the ad campaign shot by Mert and Marcus [for the Autumn/Winter 2006 campaign].

Pharrell: Changed my life, man. Do you know that though? Music has been great to me. It continues to be the skeleton key that opens every door. But one of the doors that it opened was meeting you, and having you embrace me in that way and be so supportive, and be so generous. I’m telling you, it only started happening after you did that for me. I just want you to know that on the long list of your accomplishments, your continuous accomplishments in this lifetime, you built this house and you changed my life. One hundred percent.

Marc: Thank you. I’m not putting myself down. I had the opportunity of a lifetime being here, being given the freedom and authority to do what I wanted, and what I wanted to do is what I did. Luck is opportunity meets preparation, so I got to do these things and I got to do them with you and Murakami and Stephen Sprouse and a host of people. They were people I respected and looked up to creatively, and all I did was just extend an invitation. You were born with the fashion gene, for sure. Before anybody was rocking certain things, you had that purple croc Birkin…

Pharrell: Can I just let them know where I got the inspiration to do the purple croc? You had a green croc; I saw you with it, and I was like, ‘Wow…’

Marc: You see, you’re turning it around again. I said, ‘You had this fashion gene’, and you’re like, ‘No, no, no…’ It wasn’t because of me, it was in you; you had it all along.

Pharrell: I’m Mr Observe. I am…

Marc: No. What you were doing with music, and how it was expressed through the things you wore, it was uniquely you. It was so seductive and very attractive about you; it was all the creative energy that was manifesting itself. So, you stop the self-deprecating and I’ll stop the self-deprecating – and we’ll get somewhere maybe.

Pharrell, I was watching some old N.E.R.D. performances last night on YouTube, and it got me thinking about how punk you were, you know, just in terms of attitude and aesthetic.

Pharrell: Yeah. And Marc, you were always part of that punk energy as well…

Marc: Was I?

I mean, New York punk energy, like with Sonic Youth.

Pharrell: That was a moment when New York was incredibly irreverent. That was the thing to be: subversive. Marc was definitely a part of that class.

When you came to Paris, you had the audacity to work with Stephen Sprouse.

Marc: Yeah, there were some really great French punks in the art world, too – Duchamp was the ultimate punk-rock artist. That was part of what I thought about when I came here. The guy who puts the moustache on the Mona Lisa is a punk-rock artist through and through. Also what that symbolized, by defacing it or thinking left of centre, you’ve created something new that speaks to a younger group of people. I thought, ‘Wow, you’ve got the guy here who did all this stuff in the art world, who really shook things up, so there’s plenty that’s punk rock about Paris.’

At that time of sunglasses, you had already started Billionaire Boys Club with Nigo, so you were already thinking about garments.

Pharrell: Nigo gave me a shot. I was at a point in my life where I couldn’t believe that any of this was happening to me, and that anyone cared enough to share their platform, because he had BAPE that was crushing it.3 And then meeting Marc… I’ll never forget when I made my first cheque in music – it was not a lot of money – but I blew the whole cheque on buying a bunch of Polo. Then when I got my first substantial cheque, the first thing I did was go get the LV roller, the duffle, the Keepall. So I never dreamed in a million years that I was going to meet this guy, and when I met him, I was like, ‘OK, he said he wanted to do something’; for me, even if it never came to fruition, the fact that he said that just meant so much. When we did end up doing something, it was like, ‘Oh, this is really real.’ I’m not really good at reading the moment, to say, ‘Oh, this is your time, this is happening.’ Someone around me needs to go, ‘Hey, do you understand this is really happening?’ Because my life wasn’t like that up until I got into the music industry. It always just felt like, not necessarily bad luck, but subjugated, gravity pulling down every which way, that’s just the way we grew up. But then having BBC and Nigo as a partner, and then bumping into Marc, and then Marc welcoming me in. And then when I asked, ‘Can I bring Nigo?’ he said yes and I was like, ‘Who does that?’ Any other vulture or savage in this industry – because there are a lot of them – would have been like [he claps his hands to suggest Nigo was cut out]. But he didn’t do that; I’ve never forgotten that part. That part just there meant so much to me, and I’ve just been on a continuous high from that notion even up until now. So many of these decisions, he could have said, ‘OK, this is our limit; this is where we stop’, he was like, ‘No, no, no, we did that, do you want to do a campaign?’ Wait, what me in the campaign? I wasn’t Tyson Beckford 4 or any of these other dudes…

Marc: Wait, you’re a great looking guy with tons of style, so it was not exactly ‘poor you’ in that ad campaign.

Pharrell: No, no, no, you levelled me up; let’s be clear about that. That was a level-up. The fact that you were like, without blinking, ‘Do you want to do the campaign?’ Wait, what, huh? First of all yes; second of all, wait what? And then we went on to do all the jewellery.

Marc: It all just felt like the right thing to do. It wasn’t like I thought, I’m going to look back on this or people are going to look back on this; it was just, it’s exciting being here and it’s exciting trying to figure out, and define, and keep an open mind about the possibilities of what Louis Vuitton could be. Because that was the mindset, and because you were you, and the time was what it was, it worked beautifully.

Do you mean that in the wider sense of the possibility of being generous, in collaboration or in work, rather than being vulture?

Marc: The vulture thing comes further along in history. People look back, and they want the results of that which they can see now, but weren’t open to then.

Pharrell: Yes, that’s true.

Marc: If I can pat myself on the back, maybe that’s part of what was special. I was in a position of power here with an open mind. That’s what I saw as right and interesting and cool, as opposed to a vulture later looking back and saying, ‘How can I use that?’ ‘When Mr Arnault approached me, he wanted to know my vision for Vuitton. They only did bags at the time. We had to make everything else up.’ ‘I had to do the same thing you [Marc] did, and present my vision to Mr Arnault – the future of chic, which I think is dandy. He liked it.’

I’m struck by how your stories often hinge on individual conversations – that these things with huge cultural impact happen because one person just calls someone else.

Pharrell: You can’t premeditate it. Some of these things you can plan, but oftentimes, the most magical things are those you didn’t. It’s just the instinct to ask the right question at the right time, or being around the right kind of really receptive person or a perfect environmental context so you can look at each other and go, ‘Oh yeah, we’re crazy if we don’t do this right now.’ Marc just has that instinct [clicks his fingers] that he knows he should ask this question or make this suggestion, and we’re all idiots not to step up. It’s just natural. It’s no different than a Tuesday coming after a Monday, right before Wednesday. Can we jump to now? How were you asked if you wanted to be creative director of menswear at Louis Vuitton?

Pharrell: I’d been talking to Alexandre Arnault for a year,5 and I always thought Nigo would be the guy. I wear Kenzo all the time [Pharrell opens his jacket to show he’s wearing a Kenzo sweatshirt], and then Pietro got the position [as CEO of Vuitton] and had me in mind. I didn’t know this, until Alex called me and was like, ‘It’s time’, and in my brain I was like, ‘Yes, Nigo’s going to get the house; this is going to be amazing.’ And he’s like, ‘Yeah, you know, Pietro just can’t think of anybody else better suited for the position than you.’ And I was like, ‘What?’ He’s like, ‘Yeah, you. I hope you’ll accept.’ I was like, ‘I fucking accept, but I’m going to need some time to think about it.’ He was like, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, we hope you accept’; I was like, ‘No, no, no, you don’t understand – I said yes already. I just need some time to go unpack this, because I didn’t see this coming.’ I’ve been feeling the same way ever since. You have to understand, it’s a bit emotional for me to see you because you started this. You built this house, and you knocked down the first domino that got me to this place, and I never saw this. You know, sunglasses, campaign, jewellery – in my mind, that was enough, flag in the ground. When Virgil got the position, I was like, ‘Oh, this is amazing, this story just keeps evolving, look what Marc did! I’m good! I’m over at Chanel. I’ve been there for nine years.’

Marc: Which was amazing; that was really good output there.

Pharrell: I didn’t renew over at Chanel. I don’t know why, something in me was just like, ‘Don’t renew, just chill, be supportive, you love them, they’ve been good to you. Virginie [Viard, creative director of Chanel] is awesome, Karl’s gone, you’re cool, just chill.’ When I got that call [from Alexandre Arnault], I couldn’t believe it. I literally spent the rest of the year, because it was towards the end of the year… you know those moments where somebody tells you something, you’re just not even aware of how you’re looking any more, because you’re just staring into the distance, you’re just ruminating, and I was like, ‘Is this real? Am I going to mess this up? Is something going to happen?’

How quickly did your life change, when did you start coming to live here? What did your life look like after that call?

Pharrell: I haven’t really been home since. We came here in January. I had to do the same thing you [Marc] did, and present my vision to Mr Arnault – the future of chic, which I think is dan- dy. He liked it, and pretty much everything you saw in the collection and the first show is what we presented then. I love it here; my whole mindset has shifted. With this appointment, seeing what is possible has been given a new definition and new context; it’s afforded me this different POV of Paris. I hang out with my kids, my family, but I work. And I’ve always worked hard, but I probably work harder than I ever have in my life.

Can you unpack this word chic, and the role that both of you have played in the evolution of what men wear?

Pharrell: Well, I would say, if Marc didn’t start it, he was definitely one of the founding fathers of that blend, on a popular level. I started wearing Chanel pieces I thought I could pull off. Not because they were more masculine, but because I thought the silhouette just lent itself to looking good on a human. So, I wore pearls or a sweater that made sense, but then I started to see how Marc would wear things at that time. It’s interesting, because when we first met, I felt like you wore a lot of button-downs, but very casually, with jeans or khakis; you had these clear glasses frames.

Marc: Oh, yeah.

Pharrell: Very casual, always a cigarette, just super cool, colourful socks, and you’d wear these worn Stan Smiths.

Marc: Yeah.

Pharrell: That’s the reason I started wearing Stan Smiths because I saw how you were wearing yours. Yours weren’t new; they were worn. Then you would have the Hermès; I didn’t know what to do with myself. This guy’s got all the sauce, that just started to inform me. It was like, ‘OK, well who am I now? What do I get to do? Because this guy is getting to do whatever he wants, there are no rules.’ That really informed me.

You mean the individuality of dressing?

Pharrell: And not having any rules. That’s why it’s like blowing my mind, because he’s still knocking down the walls of what one can do and showing people how they can do it.

Marc: I love fashion. That’s why I do this, right? This is the main reason why I’m interested in working in this world: I love fashion. Part of what I love about fashion is the change. I have a very personal relationship to that change, so if it’s something like a ballerina flat that takes me away, then that’s what my life looks like for the next however many months. I do remember seeing you at a certain point and I think the shorts may have been Comme des Garçons and there was a Vivienne hat, and I just took note of the different things. The big picture was that there was still that passion, because if there wasn’t that passion, there wouldn’t be a new hat to note, there wouldn’t be a new pair of shorts to note, there wouldn’t be a new shoe to note.

Pharrell: And, by the way, when I get obsessed, I need it in every colour.

Marc: Of course. It’s really interesting you asked about this idea of chic. I don’t know if chic is part of the current vocabulary, as a word. You know what I mean? It almost belongs to another time, I don’t hear a lot of young people using that word, but what it represents never goes away. What’s so interesting is people’s relationship to fashion, it’s so cool now. You can say pearls, you can say a Birkin, it’s not a lady’s necklace, it’s not a woman’s handbag, it’s just pearls, it’s just a bag. That is like, ‘Woah, that is futuristic!’ Who would have thought we’d have to attach a gen- dered article in front of these things; they’re just materials to create a look.

Pharrell, how has it been to put the shows together?

Pharrell: I’ve never been nervous about the shows. I think it’s because I’m so obsessed with the details, I’m too carried away with making sure everything’s OK that I don’t have the bandwidth to actually worry.

Marc: One of the most beautiful things about working here in Paris was that we would talk about some button design, and then the people who work in the atelier would bring the prototype of the button on a velvet cushion. They were so proud of executing this idea you’ve given them the privilege to do.

Pharrell: Yeah, you totally feel like a kid in that moment. You know what? You’re probably the first person who I’ve ever been able to share that feeling with in a conversation. [The people at Vuitton] are like, ‘Look, this is what you asked for [he acts out someone showing him their detailed work], and, by the way, we thought, why don’t we just add this bit too?’ And you’re like [he acts amazed and impressed], ‘What?!’ Straight off, you’re continuing this spirit of collaboration at Louis Vuitton, with the artist Henry Taylor in your debut collection.

Pharrell: As a black man on this planet, I’m supposed to do that. The door was held open for me, so I had to do that. I have a responsibility. My job is to hold the door. Anyone watch Game of Thrones? Hodor. That’s my job.

I’ve watched Game of Thrones and know what he means by Hodor, but no one else in the room responds. Pharrell is stunned and spends some time trying to convince Marc and Char to try again – he suggests they watch with subtitles. Pharrell says he’s watched Game of Thrones four times already, and his favourite character is Bran Stark. To avoid spoilers, I won’t say why. But by now the pair have been talking for over an hour; it’s time to wind up.

I was just going to say how incredible it’s been to be witness to this conversation, and how meaningful and how rare it is, in this luxury fashion house era, to have two creative directors in the same room from different periods. I don’t think it ever happens…

Marc: Hopefully, it’ll happen more in the future. Hopefully, humankind will change, and realize that love, respect, mutual admiration, appreciation, are the way forward, and not be, ‘It’s mine, I made it, I’m better than you are’. Maybe by speaking to each other, and sharing our stories, our relationship, maybe it’ll open up the possibility for more of this elsewhere, right? What do you think?

Pharrell: I couldn’t agree more.

Thank you, for opening up so much.

Pharrell: Well, you know, the two of us have a lot of mutual respect.

Marc: We also have a genuine relationship. It’s authentic. You get what you came for.

Pharrell: I will always be grateful to this guy. You know where we are right now? You know who I’m talking to? You know what’s happening? My greatest job is not waking up, because this is a dream. That’s the only hard part of the job I’ve got – don’t wake up.