Next week, at long last, Pharrell Williams will debut his first collection as Louis Vuitton’s men’s creative director. Rest assured, people will fly across the world to see Williams’ vision displayed in a closely kept outdoor location, not only to take in the pomp of the world’s largest luxury brand flexing its largesse, but also just to say that they were there. These days, that’s not common with fashion shows, which are live-streamed on crystal-clear video (god willing), and documented by front-row regulars who have become skilled photographers as a matter of course. 

But Williams’ appointment at the LVMH-owned leather goods house, which generates more than $20 billion a year in annual sales, demarcates a new era in fashion. When you’re dealing with an entity of that size, the only way to get bigger is to bring in someone who is as famous (or nearly as famous) as the logo itself. Williams, the groundbreaking hip-hop multihyphenate producer-artist-entrepreneur, is one of the few people in entertainment who rises to that level.