The Tamesis
Andrea Grilli, the former CEO of Off-White and Pharrell’s skin-care brand Humanrace, has joined Gallery Dept. in Los Angeles in the same role. The veteran executive will work with founder Josué Thomas to expand what Grilli calls the “cultural apparel” brand practice into international markets while growing its U.S. business.
“The things we can do here are endless,” Greeley said this weekend at the Autumn/Winter 2026 presentation at the Galerie de Paris.
Grilli has extensive experience in growing founder-led fashion businesses. He joined Off-White shortly after it was founded in 2013 and held a series of senior positions before becoming CEO in 2019, not long after Farfetch spent $675 million to acquire its licensee New Guards Group. He left in 2023, about 18 months after the death of founder Virgil Abloh. Grilli was appointed CEO of Pharrell Williams’ beauty and skin care brand Humanrace in 2024 and exited the company last November.
Gallery Dept. was founded in 2016 by Thomas, 41, to combine his interests in painting and fashion. Early work focused on reworking vintage garments for bespoke clients, layering them with paint and other decorative interventions. The brand originated in a hybrid space of studio, gallery and store on Beverly Boulevard, a place where conception, production, presentation and sales all came together.
The gallery division currently has over 60 wholesale clients worldwide. However, the majority of its revenue is generated in the United States through direct-to-consumer sales online and in its own stores. Thomas has also had many successful collaborations with brands such as Vans and Chrome Hearts.
The brand’s presentation in Paris takes place above a public-facing exhibition and retail space that hosts listening parties and a bar. The conference was held in a prime location on the corner of Castiglione Road and Mont Thabor Road, occupying three floors, which until recently was Off-White’s Paris flagship store. “I knew the landlord,” Greeley explained.
Abloh himself is a client of the gallery sector and told in 2020 new york times: “I think Josué created his own new classic and showed what black people can design.” When discussing a silhouette designed by Thomas called LA Flare (refined from deadstock products of Levi’s and Carhartt), Abloh described it as “the most important new denim style in the past decade since skinny jeans.”
Greeley said he and Thomas were first introduced in 2023 by Miami Design District co-owner Craig Robins and have stayed in touch as friends. “Josué is a super creative artist, but he’s very pragmatic when it comes to talking about business,” Greeley said. “He makes clothes, music, paintings, crafts… I don’t know if that counts as fashion. It’s cultural clothing.”
Thomas added, “It’s important to understand our meaning and purpose. It’s an interesting time because the old ways seem to have hit a brick wall. So, while I can’t say what the next path is, I hope what we write together will be different.”
