YEAH OR NAY? RIHANNA PRESENTS FENTY MAISON IN PARIS

The announcement of a fashion house led by Bad Girl Riri arrived like a bolt from the blue in the industry. The new brand of the LVMH group has been hovering in the air for weeks, creating a sort of radioactive tension that pushed us to fantasize and to ask ourselves, up to the last, what Rihanna would have invented. The answer came yesterday with the preview of the Parisian pop-up store that will be opening to the public on May 24^th.

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“I’ve been slowly evolving throughout the fashion world,” says #Rihanna. “First wearing it, buying it, being recognized for my style and then collaborating with brands. I never just wanted to put my name on something and sell my license. I’m very hands-on, so I wanted to take it slowly and gain respect as a designer.” Click the link in our bio for a first look at @badgalriri's new fashion line @Fenty, created in partnership with #LVMH, and to read her full interview with the playwright @JeremyOHarris. Photographed by @KristinLeeMoolman, styled by @SuzanneKoller, makeup by @lauren.parsons, hair by Yusef (@yusefhairnyc), manicure by Jenny Longworth (@jennynails), set design by Andrew Tomlinson (@tomotattle).

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To accompany it all, the video campaign of the first collection. Those who expected a mixed couture and street style brand were satisfied: the urban soul is the master, built on the skeleton of the Nineties rap fashion with denim jackets and oversize shirts.

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#Rihanna has the phrase “Never a failure. Always a lesson.” as a tattoo, inked backward so she can read it in the mirror. “How you gonna learn without making mistakes?” she asked the playwright @JeremyOHarris in an exclusive interview for T. Click the link in our bio to read their full conversation, and to see more of her new clothing line @Fenty — created in partnership with @LVMH. Photographed by @KristinLeeMoolman, styled by @SuzanneKoller, makeup by @lauren.parsons, hair by Yusef (@yusefhairnyc), manicure by Jenny Longworth (@jennynails), set design by Andrew Tomlinson (@tomotattle).

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Those who hoped for a touch of extravaganza in the wake of the Notes on Camp were disappointed: a few bright colors, condensed in a hint of candy pink and then immersed in a neutral mash, and no over-the-top detail that captures the attention.

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“I want to be as disruptive as possible,” says #Rihanna. “The brand is not traditional. There is no runway show. It’s a new way of doing things because I believe that this is where fashion is going to go eventually.” When Fenty.com goes live on May 29, it will be one of few luxury brands to commit fully to online sales: There are no plans for runway shows, flagship boutiques or third-party sales through department stores. New clothes will instead “drop” each month on the website, similar to the model pioneered by the streetwear brand Supreme. Click the link in our bio for more on @badgalriri's new fashion line @Fenty, created in partnership with @LVMH. Photographed by @KristinLeeMoolman, styled by @SuzanneKoller, makeup by @lauren.parsons, hair by Yusef (@yusefhairnyc), manicure by Jenny Longworth (@jennynails), set design by Andrew Tomlinson (@tomotattle).

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Certainly, the brand constitutes a unicum in the history of LVMH, a group that stands out for its elitist aesthetics and a design that is always and in any case conceptual, and which had not yet been fully launched in the world of citywear.

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#Rihanna is making a reggae album and it will arrive imminently, but she doesn’t know the exact date yet. As for the name of her ninth album? “So far it’s just been R9, thanks to the Navy,” she said, referencing the term for her crew of fans. “I’m about to call it that, probably ’cause they have haunted me with this ‘R9, R9, when is R9 coming out?’ How will I accept another name after that’s been burned into my skull?” Click the link in our bio for more takeaways from @badgalriri's exclusive interview with @JeremyOHarris. Photographed by @KristinLeeMoolman, styled by @SuzanneKoller, makeup by @lauren.parsons, hair by Yusef (@yusefhairnyc), manicure by Jenny Longworth (@jennynails), set design by Andrew Tomlinson (@tomotattle).

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But there is to say that Rihanna faces competitors, who are many, perhaps too many: inside Fenty we see Virgil Abloh with the first Off-White collections, a bit of Balenciaga in the proportions played on contrasts between long and short, large and stretch, with some hints of Vetements. In short, Rihanna referred to a fashion idea shared by many designers: she focused on the winning horse of fit rather than playing on originality.

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“You wear what looks good on you and that’s it,” says #Rihanna. “I’m thick and curvy right now, and so if I can’t wear my own stuff then, I mean, that’s not gonna work, right?” As the first black woman to run a major luxury fashion house, @badgalriri paid close attention to inclusivity when creating the @Fenty clothing line. Indeed, the mission of #Fenty, according to #JahleelWeaver (@illjahjah), a stylist for Rihanna who is now the label’s style director, “is to really speak to how multifaceted today’s woman is. We’re thinking about each release as a different facet to a woman’s wardrobe and how she approaches dressing. Luxury has been defined in the past as one woman, one brand: You know who the Saint Laurent woman is, you understood who the Céline woman was when it was Phoebe. Which is fine, but you think about how that relates to the modern woman. I don’t think she is just one thing, Rih being the perfect example of that.” Click the link in our bio for Rihanna's full conversation with the playwright @JeremyOHarris, and to see more exclusive images of her new clothing line. Photographed by @KristinLeeMoolman, styled by @SuzanneKoller, makeup by @lauren.parsons, hair by Yusef (@yusefhairnyc), manicure by Jenny Longworth (@jennynails), set design by Andrew Tomlinson (@tomotattle).

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It is still too early to understand what twist Fenty clothes will take, and the wait continues until May 29^th, the e-commerce opening date in which the range price of the line will also be revealed. The fact remains that the brand is very competitive, not only in terms of sales (also driven here by another winning horse: Rihanna’s signature) but for now, we can limit ourselves to a Miranda Priestly mood: street style, for Rihanna’s brand? Ground-breaking.