Louis Vuitton's Timberland Boot Is Pure Pharrell
The Pharrell-ification of Louis Vuitton has never been more obvious. Pharrell's next big move for LV menswear feels like it's been years in the making: he made a Louis Vuitton x Timberland boot collab happen. If you have to ask the price, you aren't getting one.
Revealed on the LV menswear design team's @skateboard Instagram page and seemingly worn by Skateboard P himself — going off the Human Made bracelet, that is — the LV Timb boots are exactly what they sound like: wheat nubuck workboots embossed with Timberland and Louis Vuitton logos at the tongue.
The big difference comes when you flip the tongue, revealing an LV monogram pattern pressed into the soft suede. It's hard to tell from the video alone but the LV monogram is also lightly stamped around the boots' upper as well.
Suddenly, Louis Vuitton became the most Noo Yawk brand in all of Paris.
Otherwise, these might appear to be your ordinary Timberland boots, zhuzhed up with just a dash of Pharrell's LV flavoring.
The collaborated Timbs are a bit more than that, though, as LV explained in a typically evocative statement.
"A classic industrial boot is proposed in wheat-colored or black waterproof scrivante nubuck lightly debossed with the Maison’s Monogram," reads the press release for Louis Vuitton's Fall/Winter 2024 collection, where the Timberland collaboration debuted.
"The boot likewise appears in pebble nubuck and super-grained buffalo nubuck versions. The same expression expands into a silhouette fifteen percent larger than the classic."
It's first worth reiterating that Pharrell's LV FW24 show was informed by the Virginia-to-Paris pipeline that is Pharrell's own life and thus included ample emphasis on workwear, the sorta blue collar stuff that the residents of Paris, Virginia probably wear every day.
And then worth clarifying that, though Pharrell's LV menswear line emphasizes bespoke pieces, his slightly-larger-than-normal Louis Vuitton Timberland boots will see a proper release, though there will be an exclusive edition, too.
"A highly limited-edition of the design is crafted with eyelets and tongue pendants featuring the LV Monogram in genuine gold, and carried in Monogram canvas and plexiglass shoe trunks," LV said.
So, though Pharrell's signature "Millionaire" Speedy bag was only available as a made-to-order proposition for VIP clients, expect the Louis Vuitton Timberlands to at least drop by way of limited sales in the vein of Virgil Abloh's LV x Nike Air Force 1 sneakers.
Maybe not through auctions, perhaps, but only the limited edition Louis Vuitton Timbs are likely to be sold to VIP clients through pre-order.
It's funny that only a few years after the LV AF1s came into being, the barrier between luxury clothing and streetwear has been eroded so much that Pharrell's LV Timbs feel almost quotidian. But they are good, make no mistake, and they are a clever Pharrell reference.
Pharrell has been wearing Timberland's signature 6" boot longer than some of his fans have been alive.
Virginia's favorite son has a longstanding love of Timbs — it probably wouldn't be unfair to say that Pharrell adores Timberland boots as much if not more than any other single style of shoe.
He worn them unceasingly through the aughts (between pairs of BAPESTAs, of course) and continued to rep Timbs through the era in which he began to create his own many, many collaborative versions.
I mean, Pharrell's Billionaire Boys Club brand alone redesigned enough Timberland 6" boots to shod a nation of stylish individuals.
Pharrell has such a craving for unique Timberland boots that he's even taken to customizing his own — a pair of specially made stompers on which he doodled the Chanel logo recently sold at auction for over $7,000.
All this is to say that the Louis Vuitton Timberland boots have as much place in Pharrell's history as they do in LV's future (which is itself steeped in Pharrell's history).
They represent the brave new direction in which Pharrell is leading the luxury maison — LV workwear familiar enough but LV Timbs? That's, like, a next-level realization of the aims initiated by the likes of Dapper Dan decades ago.
Similarly LV has always had household name ambassadors but not Rihanna, not LeBron James. This is Pharrell's Louis Vuitton, where LV Timbs walk freely.
