Virgil Abloh: A Generational Force in Fashion
The fashion industry, and the world at large, have lost a generational voice. Virgil Abloh passed away yesterday, November 28th, after a private battle with a rare form of cancer called cardiac angiosarcoma. He will be remembered as one of the most respected and influential fashion designers of this era.
Abloh’s work will resonate within modern fashion for years to come. From starting his own brand to having an honored seat at the table of one of the world’s biggest luxury conglomerates, he showed the industry that ideas exist everywhere. A jack of all trades, Abloh landed on the scene with an impact that would cause waves across multiple genres. His art knew no bounds and the legacy that he will leave behind was only beginning to take shape.
Virgil Abloh was born in 1980 in Rockford, Illinois. His parents, Nee and Eunice Abloh, had emigrated to the United States from Ghana. He graduated from the Illinois Institute of Technology with a Master’s degree in Civil Engineering. The fashion industry first heard of Abloh in 2009 when he arrived at Paris Fashion Week as part of Kanye West’s crew, making rounds at the shows and disrupting the status quo. “We were a generation that was interested in fashion and weren’t supposed to be there. We saw this as our chance to participate and make current culture. In a lot of ways, it felt like we were bringing more excitement than the industry was,” he told W Magazine about the moment.
From then on, Abloh was everywhere, almost simultaneously. He had just finished an internship at Fendi in Rome with West, who would later name him creative director of DONDA, the agency behind all of the rapper’s productions. In 2011 he won a Grammy for art directing “Watch the Throne” by Kanye West and Jay-Z. During the next few years, Abloh’s projects included launching a retail space gallery, working in the Been Trill collective alongside Heron Preston and Matthew Williams, and launching Pyrex Vision, which would later become his first major brand: Off-White.
Through Off-White, Abloh was able to solidify his role in the fashion industry while simultaneously flipping it on its head. During the 2010s, streetwear was generating millions of dollars in capital across the globe. Somehow streetwear was the cold shoulder by the luxury fashion industry—Abloh was determined to change that.
“Streetwear wasn’t on anyone’s radar, but the sort of chatter at dinners after shows was like ‘Fashion needs something new. It’s stagnant. What’s the new thing going to be?’ That was the timeline on which I was crafting my ideas,” Abloh later told GQ .
Off-White took on a life of its own, fully bridging streetwear and luxury markets. Through the use of Abloh’s creative process, which involved tweaking previous designs and making something new, the brand seamlessly moved between Instagram posts and Paris fashion shows. The creative venture encapsulates streetwear, luxury, art, music, and travel, defining the brand simply as, “the gray area between black and white as the color Off-White.” House codes were quickly established and are now easily recognizable; the zip ties, giant X logo, and of course, the quotation marks. While industry insiders gave Abloh the side-eye, the world was paying attention not only to his design talent but realizing how much it resonated with consumers.
In 2018, Abloh was named the artistic director of Louis Vuitton’s menswear collections, stepping into the role vacated by his friend and mentor Kim Jones. “Virgil is incredibly good at creating bridges between the classic and the zeitgeist of the moment,” Michael Burke, chief executive of Louis Vuitton, told The New York Times when the news broke. The role was huge for Abloh, making him the first African American designer to ever reign at the house. During his tenure, Abloh was only able to conceive less than a dozen collections, but LVMH believed in his vision and work ethic to the point that they named him a consultant to the company on an executive level, making him the most powerful Black executive in one of the most influential luxury groups in the world.
However, the work that Abloh leaves behind spans farther than just fashion. Abloh was known internationally as a DJ, released several books, operated a furniture brand, and is respected as a master collaborator having worked with names such as Takashi Murakami, Jacob the Jeweler, Warby Parker, Jimmy Choo, Ikea, and most famously, Nike. In August 2020, he launched his Post-Modern Scholarship Fund as a progressive response to the Black Lives Matter movement and has since worked to raise funds and support for Black-owned businesses, adding philanthropy to his resume. “That’s why I focus on design,” he told GQ, “while I’m also focusing on asking what and who can I shine a light on. You know it’s not just about making art or fashion for its own sake.”
“There are people around this room who look like me,” he said to The New York Times. “You never saw that before in fashion. The people have changed, and so fashion had to.”
He is beyond loved and will be remembered by many. My deepest condolences to his wife Shannon, his children Lowe and Grey, as well as his parents Nee and Eunice, and sister Edwina. The legacy of Virgil Abloh will live on through them and through all of us.