LV and Virgil

Remenbering the Abloh effect - by Dennis Sterne

Virgil Abloh - American fashion designer and entrepreneur. He was the artistic director of Louis Vuitton’s menswear collection beginning in 2018, and was given increased creative responsibilities across the LVMH brand in early 2021.

The designer passed away days before the event, following a private battle with cancer. But at his and his family’s request, the show went on as scheduled, only with an increased focus on celebrating the creative director’s legacy.

The event, titled “Virgil was here,” drew out many of Abloh’s friends, collaborators, colleagues and muses, including Kanye West and Kim Kardashian West (with their eldest child, North), Pharrell Williams, A$AP Rocky, Jerry Lorenzo, Michèle Lamy, 21 Savage and Edward Enninful, among many others; Kid Cudi, who walked the designer’s first Louis fresh eye

Vuitton menswear show, also appeared on his final runway. At the Stadium, guests were greeted by a three-story statue of the late designer.

While there were moments of somber emotion among the guests, the mood was far from funereal. There was laughter. There were long hugs. And there was no shortage of bold looks, with many in attendance paying tribute in their best Abloh-designed pieces.

Tribute

The Spring 2022 show officially began, with an audio message from the designer himself talking about the creative process and the idea of returning to this place of childlike wonder and curiosity that he’d been exploring through his work. Models made their way down the tree-lined runway, showcasing 10 never-beforeseen looks that expand on the ideas Abloh first

Fashion Icon u introduced back in June. The designer’s team at Louis Vuitton came out for the final bow, before a red hot air balloon featuring the iconic monogram floated over the audience, followed by fireworks and drones arranged to read, “Virgil was here.”

Triumph

Born in 1980 to Ghanaian parents, Abloh grew up in the suburbs of Chicago. He obtained his bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2002 and went on to study architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology. He first rose to prominence as Kanye West ‘s creative director and the duo interned together at Fendi in 2009.

Abloh launched his first fashion line, Pyrex Vision, in 2012 and collaborated with Matthew Williams and Heron Preston as part of a collective called Been Trill before partnering with the company that would become New Guards Group to launch upscale streetwear sensation Off-White in 2013. In 2017, he unveiled a landmark collaboration with Nike, deconstructing ten of its signature sneakers. And in 2018, he succeeded Kim Jones as the artistic director of menswear at Louis Vuitton. His first show for Louis Vuitton aimed to reboot the brand for a new generation, featuring a diverse cast of models who walked down a rainbow runway wearing a collection inspired by the 1939 musical film “The Wizard of Oz,” a reference to the American Dream and Abloh’s own boundary-breaking journey along a personal “Yellow Brick Road” of sorts, from Illinois to the Emerald City of Paris.

Fashion Icon

Virgil Abloh was an American fashion designer and entrepreneur. He was the artistic director of Louis Vuitton’s menswear collection beginning in 2018, and was given increased creative responsibilities across the LVMH brand in early 2021. While studying architecture, he also designed T-shirts and wrote on fashion and design for a well-known blog, The Brilliance. Abloh first met musician Kanye West while working on his designs at a Chicago print shop.