It’s a perfect day atop one of the countless hills of Malibu. The early-morning fog has given way to sunshine and a breeze whispering through coyote brush. It’s a vision I’m savoring when I hear the request blare over someone’s radio:
“Hey, can you send up some Rolls-Royces for people who need to move their cars?”
I’m visiting a wonderland built for the launch of Tyler “The Creator” Okonma’s new high-end clothing, fragrance, nail polish, and accessory line calledGolf le Fleur. For the next week, a fleet of five Rolls-Royces will be chaperoning VIPs and invite-only shoppers up the bend to take their first look at the artisan goods in a Flintstones-style store floating in the sky. Nearby, you can see French café tables with chess boards for passing the time, a swing that lures you near the edge of a cliff, macaroons from Okonma’s favorite patisserie, even a coffee shop serving a drink he designed called, the Dog Baby—a name I suspect to be asaccharine allusionto his favorite YouTube clip.“I didn’t want to play music. I would rather [feature] the live performances and stuff that I truly love that are so intertwined with making all of this,” says Okonma. “I wanted people to . . . hear the crowd, hear the different version of Stevie Wonder playing Do I Do in Brazil. Just random things. And when you look at [the Golf le Fleur collection], you feel or hear some of the things that was playing as I was coming up with it.”
As such, Okonma fairly bristles when the word “merch” casually slip from my lips as he tours me through the store filled with limited-run items. His “French Waltz” perfume is a rose-musk blend, which required a week of smelling in London to pin down. And a colorful $10,000 trunk he designed during the pandemic, in conjunction with the century-old British luggage brandGlobe-Trotter,is anything but a lazy concert tee or Christmas tree ornament.“Making that trunk, fuck, dude. From a business standpoint, it’s no profit,” says Okonma. “But I just wanted to see it exist, and I want people to be able to have it [who] are into that type of stuff.”
A pixelated, leopard-style print adorns many of the Golf le Fleur items. (Squint and you can actually read “Le Fleur” lurking in the white space.) A custom color Okonma dubs “Geneva Blue” will serve as the brand’s consistent baseline, while “Georgia Peach” offers a soft orange complement.Le Fleur will go on sale to the general public online on December 13, with prices ranging from around $30 to $10,000 (clothing items start at around $400). As for what the future of Golf le Fleur looks like, Okonma is excited, but also making zero promises. “This might last for a year. I might keep this going for 20,” he says. “I don’t know. Right now, it’s pretty much a fucking passion project, but I’m hyped. I’m super hyped.”
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