Virgil Abloh
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Virgil Abloh (born September 30, 1980, Rockford, Illinois, U.S.—died November 28, 2021, Chicago, Illinois) was an American designer and entrepreneur who was perhaps best known as the founder of the fashion label Off-White and the creative director of Louis Vuitton menswear. He often took existing ideas from a range of sources, including music, history, and architecture, and made them his own. Abloh compared himself to hip-hop artists who sampled from other musicians’ songs for their own work, or to French artist Marcel Duchamp, who created the ready-made, an everyday object that he selected and designated as art.
Early life and career
Abloh was born to Ghanaian immigrant parents—Nee Abloh, who worked at a paint store, and Eunice Abloh, a seamstress. The latter taught her son how to use a sewing machine and other basics. In 2002 Virgil Abloh graduated with a degree in civil engineering from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and in 2006 he received a master’s degree in architecture from Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago. Outside of school, Abloh was often involved in a number of different projects, including working as a DJ, designing T-shirts, and writing for the blog The Brilliance. Sometime between earning his degrees, he was introduced to Kanye West (later “Ye”), who was gaining attention for his work as a music producer, and Abloh was hired to be a part of West’s creative team in 2007.
In subsequent years Abloh and West collaborated on a variety of endeavors, including a six-month internship (2009) at the Rome headquarters of Italian fashion house Fendi. In 2010 Abloh became the creative director of Donda, West’s creative incubator, helping the musician actualize his aspirations beyond music. Abloh also served as art director on West’s albums My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (2010) and Yeezus (2013) and on West and Jay-Z’s collaboration, Watch the Throne (2011), which garnered Abloh a Grammy nomination. During this period Abloh also pursued his own undertakings, including opening RSVP Gallery (2009), a boutique and gallery in Chicago, with Don C, a friend and business partner of West’s.
Abloh created his first fashion label, Pyrex Vision, in 2012. An example from the collection included flannel shirts from Ralph Lauren that were screen-printed with the word Pyrex, the brand name of bakeware used to cook cocaine, and the number 23, Michael Jordan’s jersey number when he was in the NBA. The references alluded to the only two economic paths Abloh believed a Black man could take: selling drugs or playing professional sports. In 2013 he shuttered Pyrex Vision and started Off-White.
Off-White
Abloh characterized Off-White as “the gray area between black and white,” a description that was befitting for a label that seemingly hovered between streetwear and luxury fashion. The debut menswear collection featured screen-printed hoodies, denim shirts, anoraks, basketball shorts, and similar garments favored by youth culture. He used Instagram early on as a means of promoting his work to audiences directly. In 2014 Abloh launched a women’s line and began showing both collections during Paris Fashion Week. The following year Abloh was announced as a finalist for the LVMH Prize for Young Fashion Designers, and Off-White gained attention when Beyoncé and Nicki Minaj wore pieces from the label in the latter’s video for the song “Feeling Myself.”
Off-White continued to gain recognition, becoming known for its tongue-in-cheek humor and use of quotation marks. Knee-high boots for the women’s fall 2017 line, for example, were embellished along the calf with the words “for walking,” a phrase playfully recalling Nancy Sinatra’s 1966 hit “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’.” Abloh opened Off-White’s first flagship store in Hong Kong in 2015 and introduced the label’s first furniture collection, Grey Area, the following year. He also frequently collaborated with brands such as Levi’s, IKEA, RIMOWA luggage, Timberland, and Jimmy Choo. His best-known partnership, however, was with Nike, on “the ten,” a collection of refreshed designs of a few of the brand’s most iconic styles. The first shoe to drop was the Off-White x Air Jordan 1 Retro High OG in 2017. (Read our article on the history of sneakers.)
Louis Vuitton and later work
In 2018 Abloh was named artistic director of Louis Vuitton (LV) menswear, becoming the first person of color to hold the position. He debuted his first collection that summer during Paris Fashion Week. It featured Wizard of Oz themes and reimagined Louis Vuitton signature bags in translucent plastic or matte leather with ceramic chains. The line also included accessories, for which the French brand is especially known, transformed into garments, so that pouches and purses were attached to vests and oversized shirts. The show brought a standing ovation from the audience and an emotional embrace between West, who was in attendance, and Abloh.
The harness as an accessory became a surprisingly popular piece from Abloh’s first LV collection. Actors Chadwick Boseman, Timothée Chalamet, and Michael B. Jordan were all seen sporting the accoutrement on the red carpet throughout 2018 and 2019. Meanwhile, Abloh continued designing for Off-White, and in 2019 he also opened an exhibition of his work, “Figures of Speech,” at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Later that year, however, Abloh announced that he was taking a few months off due to exhaustion. During the protests after the death of George Floyd, who was killed while in the custody of police in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Abloh established the Postmodern Scholarship Fund (2020) to promote more diversity in fashion.
Abloh seemingly reached the pinnacle of his career in 2021 when the LVMH luxury group, which owns Louis Vuitton, announced that it had acquired a majority stake in Off-White and had expanded Abloh’s role across its brands, which include wines and spirits and hospitality. Only a few months later, however, news broke of Abloh’s death at age 41, shocking fans and the fashion world. Obituaries revealed that he had been privately battling cardiac angiosarcoma, a rare cancer, for two years. In subsequent months, Off-White announced that Ibrahim Kamara, editor-in-chief of British fashion magazine Dazed, would become its new art and image director, and in 2023 Louis Vuitton chose American musician Pharrell Williams to replace Abloh as creative director of its menswear collection. Meanwhile, Shannon Abloh, whom Virgil Abloh married in 2009, formed Abloh Securities to combine his many creative endeavors and became its chief executive.