I think you’d have to be pretty full of yourself to deny that Justin Timberlake has great style and taste in fashion, right? So like every self-gratifying pop star, the new king of pop must have a clothing company, right? The difference here being that Timberlake and his childhood friend Trace Ayala are apparently very passionate about the concept, and so they put together the company William Rast. So serious in fact that they have gone out of their way to hire Johan Lindeberg as head designer; you know, the swede who used to design for Diesel and then started J. Lindeberg. Anyway, they’ve got the money, they’ve got the publicity, and they’ve got the designer. On the hand of Timberlake, this says ten fold about him compared to all the other pop princes and princesses. On the hand of the company though, it means they’ve got to bust their fucking asses to make it seem that they are really apart of the fashion world and not just some pop stars wet dream.

If you’re wondering who the hell WIlliam Rast is through all of this, the name comes from the combination of Timberlake’s grandfather’s first name and Ayala’s grandfather’s last. Through the promos though Timberlake takes on the character of William Rast alongside the supermodel Erin Wasson. The series of shorts is some sort of desperado/confederate/criminal/running from the law with your lover type of situation that I might be interested in if I was a republican from WV. Since I’m not, I personally think they could’ve gotten a much better writer and a steadycam… and it really has nothing to do with the clothes as much as it is just an image of Justin as a rebel.

As for the clothes, you’d expect Lindeberg, under the the oversight of Timberlake, to bring about some great things. I can’t claim to have tried on any of the denim but they all look good, like really good. The Women’s clothing line is cool, not overly ambitious but rebellious and classic in the same. The part that I have a problem with is the Men’s clothing and the graphic tshirts. It’s easy to hate on graphic shirts though, everyone has a slightly different style and taste, but these just seem undeveloped and lack unique compositional decisions. The mens clothing line just lacks in ambition, and where it tries to do something new it comes off just weird and hardly embodies the image the company seems to be pushing. While J. Lindeberg has a real classic elegance to their clothes, William Rast doesn’t seem to know what it is doing. I mean, I am the last person to argue with the rebel without a cause look, but if they’re serious then they’ve got some work to convince me that they are anything close to authentic. Maybe it’s just because they’re so new that they’re feeling things out and have big things to come… but if that’s the case a little reassurance couldn’t hurt.

But what in the fuck is this?!?