Topic
Luxury Fashion
Virgil Abloh showed his first Louis Vuitton menswear collection in June 2018 on a rainbow runway in the gardens of the Palais-Royal, three months after the house named him artistic director. Luxury Fashion follows that house and the people who changed what luxury menswear looks like. Abloh died in November 2021, and in February 2023 Louis Vuitton named Pharrell Williams as his successor. Rei Kawakubo founded Comme des Garçons in Tokyo in 1969, and with Adrian Joffe she opened Dover Street Market in London in 2004, a store that put luxury labels next to young designers and streetwear. Jerry Lorenzo built Fear of God in Los Angeles into a luxury business without a European house behind it. Watches cross over here too, with the Cartier Tank and the Patek Philippe Nautilus. The coverage stays on the clothes and the business decisions behind them, and on the long back and forth between luxury houses and the street. Pharrell's debut in June 2023 took over the Pont Neuf in Paris and introduced Damoflage, a camouflage version of the house's Damier check.
Stories
Watches4 min read
Cartier Santos, the Square Watch Built for a Man in the Sky
A Brazilian aviator could not check a pocket watch with both hands on the controls. Louis Cartier gave him a square one for the wrist.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Culture4 min read
Aimé Leon Dore and Teddy Santis, From Queens to Mulberry Street
A curtained shop on Mott Street, a Greek café on Mulberry and a forgotten 1989 basketball shoe. How a Queens kid built New York's most watched quiet label.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Culture4 min read
Virgil Abloh, Off-White and the Age of Quotation Marks
An architecture graduate from Rockford put quotation marks on Nike, IKEA and Louis Vuitton. Five years on, the punctuation is still doing the talking.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Watches4 min read
Cartier Tank: The Rectangle That Outlived Its War
Louis Cartier looked at a Renault tank and drew a wristwatch. Six were made in 1919. A century later it is still the shape of quiet money.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Culture4 min read
Nigo After Bape, Human Made, Pharrell and the Kenzo Years
He walked away from the ape and built something slower. Then LVMH handed him a Paris house, and the stock market came calling.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Style4 min read
Stone Island, Massimo Osti and the Compass Badge
It started with truck tarpaulin in a town outside Modena. Forty years on, a cloth compass still tells strangers exactly who you are.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Grooming4 min read
Le Labo and the Business of Slow Perfume
Two French perfume insiders opened a lab on Elizabeth Street in 2006. Then a candle turned into the most recognizable smell in Manhattan.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Style4 min read
Rei Kawakubo, Comme des Garçons and the Heart With Eyes
She studied aesthetics, not tailoring. In 1982 she showed Paris a collection called Destroy, and fashion has been arguing about her ever since.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Sneakers4 min read
The adidas Samba, From Frozen Pitches to Every Fashion Week
Adi Dassler built it so footballers could train on frozen ground. Seventy-odd years later a British prime minister had to apologize for wearing a pair.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Watches4 min read
Patek Philippe Nautilus: How a Porthole Became a Grail
Gerald Genta drew it in 1974, Patek launched it in steel in 1976, and in 2021 the company killed its most wanted watch on purpose.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Culture4 min read
Pharrell at Louis Vuitton, Three Years of Showtime
A gold bridge, a Wild West garden, a snakes and ladders board and a wave rising out of sand dunes. Pharrell runs Vuitton menswear like a headline tour.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Culture3 min read
Fear of God and Jerry Lorenzo, the Long T-Shirt That Built a Label
A ballplayer's son with an MBA and no fashion training made extra-long tees, caught Kanye West's eye and taught American luxury to relax.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Travel4 min read
London's Soho and Dover Street Market: A Streetwear Guide
From John Stephen's His Clothes in 1957 to Rei Kawakubo's beautiful chaos on Haymarket. A walk through London's best square mile for clothes.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
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All TopicsStreetwearCollaborationsWatch HistoryHeritage BrandsJapanSneaker HistoryCartierAimé Leon DoreNew BalanceNikeLouis VuittonComme des GarçonsadidasVansPalaceSupreme