of CONTEMPORARY culture

Virgil Abloh’s Streetwear Style is on view until September 22, at the MCA.

WORDS BY LAURA LAYFER TREITMAN

One of Virgil Abloh’s first fashion debuts was a screen-print T-shirt made for the store Colette in Paris. Art and fashion patrons and students alike know the prestige of such a premiere. Located on the exclusive retail respite of Rue Saint-Honoré, until its close in 2017, this was a mecca for a “cool” trendy clientele. A place where clothing, accessories, music, books, and more co-existed in a mix of high and low inventory, as well as invitations, aka those who could afford versus those who could only appreciate and all were a part of the “see and be seen” crowd. It was a most apropos welcome for artist and designer, Abloh, now the subject of a major retrospective, Virgil Abloh: “Figures of Speech” at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA), on view this summer through September 22.

In fact, when Abloh did his first runway fashion show for Louis Vuitton menswear, the line he now oversees as Artistic Director, he wanted everyone, including store staff, to attend. “I used to think the name on a label was the only one doing the work,” admits Abloh, emphasizing the value he places on the efforts of a team. From runways to reality, his path has never been direct and that is just the kind of creativity that attracted Abloh’s artistry to MCA’s Chief Curator, Michael Darling. “His projects have unfurled with intention, precision, critique, historical awareness, cultural sensitivity, and rigor … merging together in a novel way.” In 2012, Abloh began his clothing line Pyrex Vision featuring iconic images such as a Caravaggio painting, as the techniques of the sixteenth-century Italian artist had captivated

Abloh. A year later, the brand Off-White emerged, producing clothing out of Milan for men and women. The line has its own status symbol of a black and white diagonal logo that can appear on the print of an evening gown like the one in the exhibition and made for Beyoncé’s Vogue cover, or on an accent belt to wear with casual jeans, but wherever those signature angled lines appear they represent a nod to the unexpected nature of where life takes us.

One can be a “Tourist” or a “Purist” as the words flank the walls for visitors to decide where they fit in at the start or finish of Abloh’s show. For example, a neon sign “You’re Obviously In The Wrong Place,” a décor piece from an Off-White runway show, is a sentence taken from the 90s film Pretty Woman where actress Julia Roberts’ character is told by a Rodeo Drive salesperson that she shouldn’t be shopping in their boutique. It is a contemplation, Abloh says, of his own conflicted experiences. “We draw lines between each other based on where we are born; in Chicago, there is the north side and south side, with Michigan Avenue in the middle and stores such as H&M, Zara, then Louis Vuitton and Gucci, and you may not feel like you fit in anywhere.” The exception is the MCA, located a block in from the main thoroughfare and, according to Abloh, a place to be seen as “a center point.” As a young boy, images from advertisements shaped his own perceptions of desire and consumerism, but what he really wants to share is the understanding of how one can “create your own environment.”

Abloh grew up in Rockford, Illinois, where his parents had emigrated from Ghana. Textiles and artistic tools were part of the family business, as his mother was a seamstress and his father was employed at a paint company. Yet it was after attending the University of Wisconsin-Madison when Abloh returned home to pursue a Masters in Architecture at Illinois Institute of Technology that his career trajectory developed. He felt inspired pursuing his studies on a campus designed by modernist Mies van der Rohe and was introduced to the work of famed Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas. Soon after, he was commissioned to design the McCormick Tribune Campus Center at IIT. It is also when Abloh connected with musician Kanye West, another famous name with Chicago roots. Abloh himself is a desired DJ in the music industry, having performed at Lollapalooza, among other venues. His post as Creative Director for West’s concerts, merchandising, and stage sets is highlighted at the MCA with a large-scale 3-D album cover designed by Abloh for West’s Grammy-nominated album, Yeezus

There are also photographs, paintings, jewelry, and furniture (a line with IKEA is forthcoming) that are part of Abloh’s oeuvre. Additionally, two CTA red line cars are adorned with his graphics, there is a West Loop pop-up store, and another store called Church & State located on the 4th floor of the MCA. In the galleries, a canvas of solid background with the title of the work Advertise Here and a phone number in the foreground evokes the look of a billboard sign, and if the viewer actually dials the digits a message picks up of Abloh discussing his Spring/Summer 2016, “Blue Collar” Off-White Men’s collection. A Louis Vuitton classic leather duffel bag is shown chained to the ground, suggesting the lock of luxury on society. However, that is not what Abloh wants anyone, particularly youth, to interpret. For example, as he says about the assortment of Nike gym shoes he designed for the company, “I want a kid that wants those shoes to do what I would if you don’t have the money to spend—go out and make your own version.” This may be why Darling describes the accompanying 500-page show catalogue (that includes an essay by Koolhaas) as a “user manual of cheat codes that Abloh generously shares.” Individual expression is perhaps the best definition of the streetwear style he has made fashionable. A powerful approach to popular culture, for observers of all ages, not to emulate but rather originate. That, it would seem to Abloh, is true collaboration.

For more information, visit mcachicago.org.