No Half Measures in Primary Colors

Everyone has an aesthetic that’s inseparable from their personality, and Pharrell Williams is the clearest example I can think of. The man wore a Vivienne Westwood mountie hat to the Grammys without a trace of self-consciousness. Of course his sneakers were going to be loud.

The Adidas Originals collaboration he announced that autumn produced exactly what you’d expect: shoes in heavy primary colors—reds, blues, blacks that don’t negotiate—with the particular confident simplicity Pharrell pulls off as though it requires no effort. Not everyone can. Most people who try to dress like Pharrell end up looking like they’re in costume.

What I actually like about the collab is the refusal of restraint. There’s a whole strain of sneaker culture that fetishizes the minimal—the clean white shoe, the barely-there colorway, the silhouette so stripped-down it reads almost as a rebuke. Pharrell went in the opposite direction and made something that announces itself from across the room. The jackets he co-designed for the line operate on the same principle: wear this and you have chosen to be seen.

Whether you wanted that level of visibility was the only real question the collection asked. For Pharrell, the answer has always been obvious.