GQ: Personal Style - Pharrell Williams

Having stopped over in London as part of the N.E.R.D. album playback event at Present, N.E.R.D. front-man Pharrell Williams conducted a short interview with GQ UK. The interview focused exclusively on his own personal style in which he shared his thoughts with some candid comments. An overview can be seen below with more seen at GQ UK.

My style hero was Batman. Now it’s Tony Stark.

Sometimes what is bad taste now, three years later could be the most incredible thing ever. You just never know.

I like it when Prince William goes dandy. He’s got all the proper wardrobe when they do the hunting thing. They kill that! I was inspired by a lot of Purdey – the Space Beach Cape in the new BBC A/W collection was Purdey mixed with a bit of Malcolm McClaren.

How did I dress well on a budget? I dressed completely ridiculously. We had this habit of wearing two pairs of socks. One we would wear normally, the other we would pull right over the ball of your foot. It would make your shoe puffy, which would make your foot appear smaller. We were just weirdos, man. I don’t know what dimension that rolled out of.

Alber Elbaz is just a genius. He’ll be in a dinner jacket and he doesn’t care what time of day it is: I love that about him. He just marches to the beat of his own drum.

I love boat shoes, but I’ve got to let them go now. Don’t you think? Dr Martens are making a very interesting comeback. Good colours and a different silhouette. A lot of [high-end] shoes come across as “designer”. It’s anti-designer time.

If you look at Billionaire Boys Club and Ice Cream, I’ve been inspired by archetypes. In the super hipster dance culture, there are things like these [picks up Ice Cream tracksuit trousers with popsicles on them]. Shay would never wear these – but they are so comfortable. I was making them so punks and hipsters could come and get some things too. Because we’re not a punk or hipster brand. We did a lot of hipster things, but we moved on.

Nike is still killing it. I don’t know what it is but there’s something about the futuristic sneaker shape that kills it. I saw this kid wearing [purple and pink woven] Nike shoes downstairs and I was like, “What the hell is this?” Those were cold.

Marc Jacobs is the godfather. In no specific order, there’s Karl [Lagerfeld], Junya Watanabe, Rei from Comme des Garçons and Tommy Hilfiger is creeping up too – he has a nice couture line. Let’s get Nigo in there as well! All of those guys are the kings of all kings. The fact I was able to meet those people and work with them was really cool.