Music super-producer and singer Pharrell Williams has become Chanel’s first-ever male handbag model.
The fashion company picked the “Happy” singer to star in its new campaign video for the Gabrielle bag. In the bizarre clip, Williams dances and hops his way through an abandoned warehouse with the iconic black Gabrielle handbag in toe.
The short film culminates with a young boy who approaches Williams and reveals a message, “Gabrielle,” written in cursive on his palm. The boy vanishes, leaving Williams to appreciate his handbag.
The Grammy-winner is but the latest male model to become the face of a major women’s fashion campaign.
Last year, child star Jaden Smith, the teenage son of Will and Jada Pinkett Smith, became the new face of fashion house Louis Vuitton’s Spring/Summer 2016 women’s collection.
Last October, James Charles became the first male spokesperson for CoverGirl cosmetics and in January, Maybelline made makeup model Manny Gutierrez the American brand’s first male makeup ambassador.
Williams, of course, was a very vocal supporter of Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election.
An early Clinton endorser — Williams backed Clinton in March 2014, telling GQ magazine: “We’re about to have a female president. Hillary’s gonna win” — he urged women to “save the nation” by not electing another “destructive” male president.
“That silence in this room right now is often what I feel when you see some of the things that are being said, not just about my culture, but about women,” Williams said last November in an interview at Variety‘s Inclusion summit. “I’m praying that women come together and save this nation. You think about the destructive things that have come from mankind, it’s mostly men.”
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