• Motto

Pharrell Williams Is Chanel’s First Male Handbag Ad Model

2 minute read

Pharrell Williams will become the first man to star in Chanel handbag advertisements, WWD reported.

The singer will appear alongside Kristen Stewart and Cara Delevingne in ads for the storied French fashion brand’s “Gabrielle” bag. Chanel designer Karl Lagerfeld told WWD that the bag is versatile. “It’s not very feminine in the sense of being chichi,” Lagerfeld joked to WWD.

Williams says he uses the “croc” version of the bag to carry his phone and other essentials. This isn’t his first gig for Chanel, either. He walked the runway for the design house’s 2017 Métiers d’Art collection and the brand even refers to him as “a close friend of the House of CHANEL and personal friend” of Lagerfeld.

“I was like a nerdy little black kid on a skateboard. So looking at high-end fashion was something that I really didn’t understand in the very beginning,” Williams told WWD. “And then I realized, slowly but surely, man, this is amazing. And although there’s mostly the perception that it’s for women, I just started to see, OK, as a man I can wear some of this.”

Chanel did not immediately respond to Motto‘s request for comment.

[WWD]

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Write to Samantha Cooney at samantha.cooney@time.com