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By the time Virgil Abloh wanted to enter the 29-year-old fashion industry, he had already gained enough strength to establish his own label. Instead, he told them FT this year, went to Rome and started a course in Fendi, to learn “how fashion works, as opposed to how I think it works”.
That expression of humility, interest, and openness was characteristic of Abloh, who died Sunday, 41 years old, after a two-year secret warfare with heart angiosarcoma, a rare form of cancer.
Louis Vuitton men’s production manager since 2018 and founder of Off-White’s high-profile record, Abloh was regarded as the most powerful black man in fashion. He worked closely with and excelled in the factories and mediums, making Nike shoes and Ikea chairs, which likened him to Andy Warhol, Karl Lagerfeld and Marcel Duchamp, an artist, writer and chess player who is often referred to as an influence.
His colleagues and co-workers described him as “good” and “easy”, with unparalleled work and extraordinary ability to express what was good. Where other planners saw rules and restrictions, he saw the possibility. “They are not bothered by the draconian codes and keep the gates and the rules,” said Tremaine Emory, a night and day musician and friend of Abloh.
He nurtured and nurtured other talents, including architects Heron Preston and Matthew Williams, who is now the creative director of Givenchy, a genre of LVMH.
Abloh was promoted this year to be a major component in LVMH, with the promise of establishing new LVMH models and collaborating with existing ones.
“We are all shocked by the news,” LVMH chairman and chief Bernard Arnault said in a statement announcing his death on Sunday. “Virgil was not only a fantasy and a visionary, he was also a man of great beauty and intelligence.”
“Virgil was not only a friend, a great collaborator, a genius, a visionary and a troublemaker, but also one of the best speakers in our modern culture,” said Louis Vuitton boss Michael Burke, who hired Abloh, in a statement. email. “He opened the way for future generations. As a volunteer volunteer for her community through her donations and aspirations, she was an eternal prospect who believed that everything could be done. ”
In the first American-born generation of Ghanaian parents, Abloh became known in the early 2000s as a DJ and Kanye West co-producer, co-starred in the Grammy on the art of directing West and Jay Z. Watch the Throne Album in 2011.
A trained architect specialist, who launched Pyrex Vision streetwear in late 2012, is actively selling from a line of photographs printed on dead Ralph Lauren portraits worth hundreds of dollars each. Although it closed in less than a year, it opened the door to a much better Off-White opening, which was purchased by LVMH this year.
Along with brands such as Vetements and Y / Project, Off-White helped break down the barrier between streetwear and high fashion, mixing streetwear like hoodies and T-shirts with separators and Diana, Princess of Wales-inspired dresses, at times. in one garment.
His tools were artwork, often engraved with words that made one reconsider their important work – there were handbags marked “Personal Property” and “Sculpture”, and high-heeled shoes with the words “For Walking”.
He continued to have direct conversations with fans via Instagram and Twitter, forming an online group around his brand that others have tried to emulate.
Abloh was not a well-trained fashion designer, and his selection at Louis Vuitton met with suspicion within LVMH and all companies. Critics have sometimes claimed that they did not disclose anything original in fashion.
Abloh instead saw himself as “glass”. With Off-White, he told me in a 2016 interview, he wants to create a “high-quality, artistic, image of what I see on the street”.
“I am trying to create art at the commercial level. This is what Off-White is all about, based on art and architecture but quantity, like Canal Street, so people buy. ”
For the past two years, Abloh has spent most of his time in Rockford, Illinois, where he grew up, with his wife, Shannon, whom he had met in high school, and their two young children. He also expanded his charity efforts, establishing the Virgil Abloh “Post-Modern” Scholarship Fund in 2020 for black, African-American or African fashion students.
“Everything I do is just taking me for 17 years,” his family quotes him Instagram story Sunday.
Until the day of his death, Abloh was working on the collection of his last Louis Vuitton costume, which will be on display in Miami on Tuesday.
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