Introducing Homer, Frank Ocean’s “Independent American Luxury Company

Ocean is finally launching his long-rumored fashion project with a collection of fine jewelry.

 

(Courtesy of GQ)

In the last several years, Frank Ocean’s creative output has been tantalizingly sporadic. He released a handful of singles and called off the release of one more. He threw a series of dance parties in Queens. He launched a voter registration drive before the 2020 election and appeared in a Prada campaign. Mostly, though, he seemed to be working on a mysterious project about which little was known. He rented an art studio in New York’s Chinatown, where one of his cars could often be seen parked outside, and there were whispers that he was launching... something. Definitely not an album, though—a physical thing. Was it clothing? Furniture? Just what Ocean and his small group of Blonded employees—architects, graphic designers, fashion creatives—were up to in his downtown office was anyone’s guess.

It turns out that Frank Ocean has been designing jewelry. Today, he announced the launch of Homer, a line described in a press release as an “independent American luxury company.” The first Homer collection is extensive, comprising dozens of diamond-encrusted bracelets, cartoon-colored enamel pendants, patterned silk scarves, and gold rings sculpted into the word "OK." A Homer store is expected to open in The Jewelry Exchange, an Uncut Gems-style emporium on the Bowery filled with old school diamond setting and watch repair booths, on Monday. For now, the collection is only available at the Homer store.

The project has been in the works for almost three years, a span that suggests Ocean has approached Homer—described in the release as representing “carving history into stone,” and which is perhaps related to Home Record, an LLC Ocean registered several years ago—with the level of meticulousness and connoisseurship he brings to making music (and buying couches). The pieces in the first collection are designed in New York and handmade in Italy, and the diamonds are grown in the brand’s own domestic laboratory. The price points range from accessible to outrageous. Enamel plus-symbol pendants are $435, similar to what you might find at a local Canal St. gold shop. And then there’s the "sphere legs high jewelry necklace," which will cost just shy of $1.9 million. (Yes, $1.9 million.) Ocean is aiming to reach his twenty-something fans as well as the celebrities who engage in Instagram one-upmanship with their Ben Baller and Jacob the Jeweler pieces. (It’s easy to imagine Lil Uzi Vert fighting, say, Quavo over a one-of-one Homer high jewelry chain.) Not many brands encompass both entry-level and high jewelry, but not many people are as mysteriously alluring as Frank Ocean, whose previous merch drops (to say nothing of his music releases) caused multi-day, social media-driven news cycles.

Ocean has that uniquely compelling draw because he’s carved out a one-person home at the intersection of massive global popularity and exquisite, niche taste. He’s done billions of Spotify streams, but seems more interested in collecting the perfect old Céline bag than in embracing the trappings of celebrity. Fans and fashion insiders alike have long wondered whether—or when—Ocean would launch a project that aligned with his famously particular tastes in clothing. Though the ultimate ambitions of Homer are yet unclear, Monday’s drop is billed as the “first collection”—the first, perhaps, of many, including a forthcoming collaboration with Prada. What’s nearly certain is that Homer will be more like Tyler, the Creator’s Golf Wang or A$AP Rocky’s AWGE—defined by unpredictable drops and one-off projects meant for a new generation fluent in personal style—than a world-eating Cactus Jack or Yeezy.

And while launching a new luxury brand with jewelry might seem slightly out of left field, Ocean’s own personal adornment has traced the shifting contours of masculinity in fashion. In the Channel Orange era, Ocean occasionally wore the brash iced-out Jesus pieces and dookie ropes that once defined the hip-hop aesthetic. In the ensuing years, as DIY brands and artisanal jewelers have introduced pearl necklaces, diamond chokers, and dangly earrings into the menswear lexicon (and as luxury brands have followed suit by introduced more delicate forms for men), Ocean’s taste in jewelry has become softer and more subtle. In 2018, he posted a flowery bracelet made of emeralds and pink diamonds on his Instagram story, spawning dozens of Depop dupes. He took to wearing slim silver hoop earrings and subtle cushion-cut diamond studs. On his 2019 GQ cover, he wore a simple custom ID bracelet engraved with the phrase “Feel Loved“.

It turns out that Ocean’s fascination with making jewelry might have been hiding under our noses this whole time. In that cover story, Vegyn, the co-host of Ocean’s Blonded Radioshow, asks if he’s got any resolutions going into the new year. “I didn't do my last one, to be honest with you,” Ocean replies. “My last one was self-decoration, and I haven't finished any of my jewelry, so I'm gonna carry that on to next year.”

Today, finally, Ocean’s quest for self-decoration has been fulfilled.