Fashion Designer

A son of African immigrants, he was always interested in design – from clothes to furniture, to cars. ‘Creatively restless’ with ‘boundless energy’, he earned international praise and respect despite some career challenges. 

FAMILY BACKGROUND

Virgil Abloh (VA) was born in Illinois to parents who had emigrated from Ghana, Africa. His mother was a seamstress, and his father managed a paint company. 

CHILDHOOD

From VA’s mother, VA learned how to sew and appreciate clothing that wasn’t ‘high fashion’ but comfortable in many settings ranging from home to business to socializing. 

VA’s interest in music led him to DJing beginning in his teens. He DJ’d at house parties throughout high school and college. Eventually, VA gained recognition as a very talented DJ and started playing shows internationally. He pursued his musical interests within creative arts by helping to design Pioneer brand DJ equipment and original covers for pop music albums. 

EDUCATION

Following high school graduation, VA enrolled in civil engineering courses at the University of Wisconsin. Later, he earned his Master of Architecture degree at the Illinois Institute of Technology. While attending IIT, a building on campus was under construction, designed by the architect Rem Koolhaas, who had also worked on runway collections for ‘Prada’ (an Italian luxury fashion line). Koolhaas’ designs helped VA spark his interest in fashion. 

VA’s Master’s thesis project involved a design for a Chicago skyscraper, which curved in the direction of Lake Michigan. While studying architecture, he also designed T-shirts and wrote about fashion and design for a blog, ‘The Brilliance.’

VA first met musician Kanye West while working on West’s designs at a Chicago print shop. 

FIRST ADULT JOB IS NEVER A BINDING CAREER COMMITMENT

Following his architecture degree, VA interned in the same group at ‘Fendi’ (another Italian luxury fashion line) as Kanye West. Placed together in the company’s Rome, Italy office, the two began their collaborative professional relationship to create music and art projects. During his work with the rapper and designer West, VA caught the attention of the Louis Vuitton CEO, with whom he would work later as an artistic director. 

LAUNCHING HIS CAREER IN THE FASHION INDUSTRY

Using his own creative art ideas plus the judgment of a business partner who was then the artistic director for West, together they opened a retail clothing store, called the RSVP Gallery, in Chicago. The store became known for carrying a mixture of fashion apparel, and for its reflection of VA’s style on his design for the store’s interior. 

A year later, West appointed VA the creative director of his creative agency, ‘Donda.’ Soon thereafter, West asked VA to serve as the artistic director for the 2011 Jay-Z/West album, Watch the Throne, earning VA as its designer, a Grammy nomination. 

A few years later, VA launched his first company, Pyrex Vision. He purchased ‘deadstock’ (meaning authentic or never worn) clothing from Ralph Lauren for $40 per piece, then screen-printed designs on them and sold each piece for prices upward of $550. He closed the company a year later, as he did not intend it to be a commercial enterprise, but only an artistic experiment. 

Next, VA founded his first fashion house by creating his high-end streetwear brand designs which he called ‘Off-White’. Based in Milan, Italy, the company was described by VA to investors and fashion critics as “the gray area between black and white as the color of off-white.” 

The brand generated widespread attention for VA’s apparel beginning in Paris, then expanding to China, Japan, and the United States. This clothing line can be identified through its use of quotation marks (example: upon an iconic little black dress, VA’s design included the words “little black dress”), zip-ties, capital letters and barricade tape. 

Once collaborating with the Mercedes Benz car company, VA created a reimagined G-Class SUV as a racecar. He launched the company’s women’s wear line and showed his collections at Paris Fashion Week, which led to VA’s selection as a finalist for a fashion industry award. 

By the end of 2018, a survey of sales and consumer sentiment ranked Off-White as the hottest label in the world, surpassing Gucci. VA also partnered with the Swedish furniture company IKEA to design furniture for apartments and houses as well as easy to carry tote bags with the word “sculpture” imprinted in the middle. 

While working with Nike to re-design a variety of the company’s best-selling shoes, VA also worked on designs for chairs, coffee tables, beds, storage cabinets, mirrors, and carpets as part of his collaboration with IKEA. 

VA used quotation marks (“  “) to convey his own detachment from society and social norms. During the rise of neo-nationalism, VA worked with conceptual artist Jenny Holzer to create a fashion line emphasizing the positive aspects of immigration, cultural integration, and globalization. He designed T-shirts for Planned Parenthood in support of the 2017 Women’s March on Washington (protesting women-related policies of the recently elected U.S. President.)

In 2018, VA was named artistic director of Louis Vuitton’s menswear ready-to-wear line, making him the first person of African descent to lead the brand’s menswear line, as well as one of the few Black designers at the helm of a major French fashion house. Rihanna was the first well-known person to wear Abloh fashions prior to his designs presented at the 2018 Men’s Fashion Week in Paris. This led to VA creating an original outfit for women’s pro tennis legend, Serena Williams, to wear throughout the 2018 U.S. Tennis Open, in collaboration with his Nike sneaker designs. 

CHALLENGE – ACCUSATIONS OF PLAGARISM

VA believed that a new design can be created by changing an original by only 3 per cent. He based this on what VA stated was a precedent established by the French artist Duchamp but some of VA’s minimal changes of art created by others led to VA being accused of plagiarism. (See online Wikipedia for further details on this controversy.)

CHALLENGE – OUTSIDER

When VA began breaking into the fashion world, he remembered feeling like an outsider. “We got into about 60% of the shows,” he told W Magazine about attending his first fashion shows in Paris with Kanye West. “We were a generation that was interested in fashion but 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 current fashion industry was.”

HUMBLE BUT DETERMINED TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE WITHIN SOCIETY

“Fashion is kinda a joke,” said VA. “I don’t get too bogged down in the clothes. For me, it’s one big art project, just a canvas to show that fashion should have a brand which has someone behind it who cares about different contexts. Social things.”

CAREER SATISFACTION

VA was regarded as one of the most influential and powerful Black designers of his generation. “Through it all, his work ethic, infinite curiosity, and optimism never wavered. Virgil was driven by his dedication to his craft and to his mission to open doors for others and create pathways for greater equality in art and design,” said a fashion industry colleague. “He often said, ‘Everything I do is for the 17-year-old version of myself,’ believing deeply in the power of art to inspire future generations.”

The Washington Post’s fashion critic noted that as a designer, Mr. Abloh often bridged the gap between what has been traditionally considered high and low fashion. The critic described VA as a “designer who has been able to distill pop culture, the zeitgeist, the aura of cool, the glamour of celebrity, and a kind of glossy hipster diversity down into even motorcycle jackets, T-shirts and sneakers.”

The Post continued: “Abloh is a self-taught designer whose aesthetic is born out of his environment and his friends, his love for the ease of streetwear, and his appreciation for the status and luxury of high-end apparel. In his work, he has not made a stuffy intellectual argument about whom and what the culture values, but he has, with nonchalance and confidence, underscored the ways in which fashion must change to adapt to its evolving customer base.”

______________________________________________________________________

This career story is based on an obituary written by Travis Andrews, published by The Philadelphia Inquirer on November 29, 2021, plus internet research including Wikipedia.