Frank Ocean has made an unexpected return to spotlight – not with new songs, but with the launch of a luxury company called Homer.
The ‘Chanel’ singer, who has written for Beyoncé, John Legend, and Tyler the Creator, will kick off his venture with the release of a 25-piece collection of self-designed high and fine jewellery, a printed scarf and belt buckle.
The pop-art meets kids’ toy designs come in brightly coloured enamel, recycled silver and with surplus lab-grown diamond studs. Red dice with jester hats swing off 18K gold chains, Pokémon-esque pendants are candy pink and blue with pointy ears and devils tails, and diamonds fully encrust the white gold ‘Sphere Legs’ bracelet ($271,500) which looks like interwoven cells. “It took us a year and a half to make that f***ing bracelet ,” he told the Financial Times.
“This is 3 years in the making and there is so so [sic] much I’m excited to share with all you strangers,” Ocean wrote on an Instagram story. “My hope is to make things that last, that are hard to destroy, set it in stone.”
In an industry populated by designers who whip up hype through limited edition drops – think Yeezy, Balenciaga and Supreme – Ocean faces a challenge when it comes to creating exclusivity. Unsurprisingly, he has not kept to the beaten path. In the face of brick-and-mortar hardship and the rise and rise of e-commerce, Homer items will only be available for appointment-only purchase at the 70-74 Bowery shop in New York, which opens on August 9. On the brand website, where fans can flick through a magazine-cum-catalogue to the sound of rapper 454’s debut track ‘4 Real’, the page reads simply “out of stock.”
Priced from $395 to $1.9m, it might seem risky, but if Ocean’s experimental tracks – cult favourites include ‘Pink + White’ and ‘Nights’ – succeeded in being the score to millions of teen coming-of-age moments, and continue to draw in a hefty 15.3m monthly listeners on Spotify, he is the man to make it work. Not to mention the allure of his personal style, which is laid back yet stylish. Think suit trousers with a nylon Prada hoodie at the Met Gala, or that “when you could just be quiet” slogan tee from 2017. If you need reminding, click through his best looks in the gallery above.
So why Homer? “Mostly because it’s five letters and the dotcom was available,” he told the FT. “But also because Homer is considered the father of history and history is meant to endure – the same as diamonds and gold – and I know Homer used papyrus, but I’ve always liked the idea of carving history into stone.”
