Just imagine, during your regular business day at the office, an internal memo comes announcing that the company is welcoming on board a fresh new co-owner. With the emphasis on fresh.
This is what happened to the employees of clothing brand G-Star Raw last month. And this is usually enough to start worrying about your job too. A new owner, usually has new plans and wants to shake things up, but those worries about a shake, take on a whole different meaning when you hear it’s Pharrell Williams who bought himself into the company.
G-Star is a Dutch jeans brand, with its headquarters located in Amsterdam. It’s known to make extremely fashionable denim clothes that are also comfy to wear, and are usually meant to last.
Pharrell Williams is…well, the only person who made being a N.E.R.D. cool. Of course, no need to explain really, his music has been leading on the rest for many years, but his fashion style has not gone unnoticed either. It’s not just attracted brands like Adidas to lash on to him for help, giving them the most profitable year yet, but it’s also led him to start building his own fashion empire.
In 2005, he started the Billionaire Boys Club and IceCream, which he lost half interest in along the way. He managed to buy back fully into his own company at the beginning of this year. A month later, he bought into G-Star.
I, personally, got acquainted to a sewing machine last year. Very daunting when you first start out, BTW. The first thing I ended up doing was upcycle my old jeans. I turned them into hand bags and bracelets.
Pharrell also sees the potential to use denim for anything other than your regular jeans, like a teepee, which is the first project he let loose on G-Star. G-Star lets him get completely creative with them. After all, he’s already got a proven track record in making fashion brands even more successful. The best thing to do with minds like that, is to just let them do their thing.
Last week, he paid his first visit to the Amsterdam headquarters. Only important fashion mags (like Vogue) or bloggers were invited to meet up with him, while being here. And no, that didn’t include me. Ah well, maybe next time. Along for the ride were A$AP Rocky and Miguel though, who got to see Pharrell address his new staff. Can you just imagine that? Even for G-Star staff, that wasn’t a normal day at the office.
