OFF-WHITE: THE STORY OF A LUXURY STREETWEAR PIONEER

article bY JÚlia dara

Off-White is one of the leading streetwear fashion brands of all time. The brand got worldwide recognition in such a short period of time and pioneered in the luxury streetwear market. Behind the name, it brings the concept of the union of contrasts between black and white, a palette very present in its creations.

In this article, we are going to tell this story. Keep reading to know all the details!

BEFORE OFF-WHITE: VIRGIL ABLOH’S STORY

The future founder of Off-White was born on September 30, 1980, in Rockford. His parents were immigrants from Ghana, and his mother was a seamstress. She introduced him to the first teachings related to fashion.

Virgil’s main characteristics were a passion for art and sports, street culture, skateboarding and graffiti. Despite his creative mind, the young man chose to go to civil engineering college to fulfill his father’s dream of having an engineer son. After graduation from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, he completed a master’s degree in architecture from the Illinois Institute of Technology.

A FASHION FRIENDSHIP: VIRGIL & KANYE

Virgil and Kanye met in Chicago in 2002. West was already a well-known rapper, but he hadn’t yet expanded his empire beyond music. They were both interns at Fendi in the summer of 2009, which expanded the relationship between the two and also with fashion.

Since the beginning of their friendship, Virgil has always been his advisor when it came to art direction and fashion.

2009 Paris Fashion Week

That year, Kanye had just closed a partnership with Louis Vuitton and the creative team traveled to the French capital to align the project, which coincides with Paris Fashion Week. They were all photographed in a “now-infamous group shot outside of the Comme des Garçons show.”

As it was futuristic, it divided opinions but resulted in a new opportunity for the luxury market. “This was actually before street style had become such a phenomenon and you could really see how much Kanye loved fashion and clothes, and Virgil did too,” said Tommy Ton to VOGUE.

From merchandising to tour stages to special effects and art installations, Abloh also worked on the album’s graphic material. This position led Abloh to design the Grammy-winning artwork for West and Jay-Z’s Watch the Throne album.

The Controversial Pyrex

With support from his friends and street fashion experts Marc Moran and Don C, Abloh launched the Pyrex Vision brand as a first test in the fashion market. The debut collection featured a line of plaid flannel shirts.

He made the clothing from deadstock Ralph Lauren flannel shirts bought for $40 each. The controversy is that after being screen printed with the word “Pyrex” and the number 23 — a reference to Michael Jordan — the flannels were resold for $550 each.

“THE GRAY AREA BETWEEN BLACK AND WHITE AS THE COLOR OFF-WHITE”

Pyrex’s idea led to what we know today. Virgil Abloh founded Off-White in 2013 as a multi-platform creative endeavor, a space for his continuous experimentation. He spoke directly to the young audience, approaching customers and fans who are fascinated by the universe of music, contemporary art, streetwear and the luxury market.

As the official website says: “The main medium being fashion yet he combined ideas of streetwear, luxury, art, music, and architecture. Virgil’s visionary approach to the medium of fashion remains iconoclastic and profoundly conceptual yet accessible to a broad global audience.”

The Collabs

Virgil Abloh reinvented a total of ten different models of Nike sneakers for his The Ten project, including the Air Max, Air Jordan, Blazer and VaporMax. In addition to Nike, the designer was responsible for collaborating with several other brands, including:

Levi’s Rimowa

Mc Donald’s Jimmy Choo

IKEA

Moncler

Browns

Warby Parker

SSENSE

Sunglass Hut

Champion

Évian

Converse

Dr. Martens

Barneys New York

Umbro

Timberland

Takashi Murakami

Heron Preston

ASAP Rocky

Byredo

Boys Noize

Le Bon Marché

Asspizza

Kerwin Fros

The Ballet Composer’s Holiday

OFF-WHITE & LOUIS VUITTON

In 2018, Virgil was named artistic director of the menswear line at Louis Vuitton. He became the first black man to hold the position. Louis Vuitton is the flagship of the largest luxury conglomerate in the world, LVMH.

In July 2021, LVMH announced it would take a 60% stake in Off-White, with founder Virgil Abloh, re- taining the remaining 40%. Virgil was promoted to a new position within LVMH that would allow him to work across the group’s 75 brands, making him the most powerful Black executive in the group.

But after many inspiring achievements and innovations, Abloh’s trajectory came to a halt and the world got the news no one was waiting for.

VIRGIL ABLOH’S LEGACY

The 41-year-old designer died in November last year in Chicago after a two-year battle with cardiac angiosarcoma, a rare cancer.

Abloh now lives as a legacy. He broke down barriers for other designers like him to have space in the industry and made the dream of belonging possible for a new generation of the black community fashion lovers.

Virgil always believed in the future of the young ones, as Off-White’s first ever line was named “The Youth Always Win.”

In 2020, Abloh launched a fund aimed at black fashion students, with an initial value of $1 million. The mission of the Virgil Abloh™ Post-Modern Scholarship Fund is “to foster equity and inclusion within the fashion industry by providing scholarships to students of academic promise of Black, African-American, or African descent.”

Almost six months after his death, Off-White has named Ib Kamara as its new image and art director. He is a stylist from Sierra Leone and had a strong collaborative relationship with Abloh. They had works signed together in both Off-White presentations and Louis Vuitton menswear collections.

Written by JÚLIA DARA. for Fashinnovation.

FASHINNOVATION, under the coordination of Marcelo and Jordana Guimaraes, is global platform that bridges the gap between the fashion industry and intersecting industries, through our four main pillars: entrepreneurship, sustainability, technology & innovation, diversity & inclusion.

@fashinnovation.nyc / www.fashinnovation.nyc

COMO ANDA A SUA PACIÊNCIA?

PPaciência? Sentimento extremamente necessário, mas que, muitas vezes, temos dificuldade em lidar com ele. Em um mundo em que muitas coisas estão à mão, onde encomendas chegam no mesmo dia em que são feitas, deliveries de comida atendem 24 horas ao dia, músicas e filmes estão disponíveis a qualquer momento e até aplicativos permitem encontros sem o “esforço” da conquista - parece que o ato de esperar virou sinônimo de perder tempo.

Porém, uma coisa é certa: o ritmo do mundo não é o nosso: cada coisa tem um tempo certo de acontecer.

É preciso saber aproveitar o que já está ao nosso alcance, em vez de alimentar frustrações por tudo que não é exatamente como desejamos ou não ocorre no tempo que gostaríamos.

Para muita gente é difícil evitar essa pressa nociva e aceitar os incômodos de um resultado que ainda veio, seja uma resposta, uma mudança, uma recompensa, uma promoção ou um aprendizado.

Ser paciente não é o mesmo que ser passivo; ser paciente, na verdade, é agir sabendo que os frutos das ações podem levar algum tempo para aparecerem. Plantar e colher são, necessariamente, ações que acontecem em tempos diferentes.

Isso envolve saber esperar, sem forçar um resultado, fazendo reflexões e ponderações de forma ativa, mas tendo respeito pelo processo de maturação de cada coisa, ciente inclusive, de que esse percurso pode envolver erros e decisões indesejadas.

Não podemos querer controlar tudo e todos. Ter mais paciência requer uma visão empática do mundo, que considere não só nossos desejos,

andrea ladislau @dra@andrealadislau

mas também a realidade e as limitações daquilo e daqueles que nos cercam.

É preciso desenvolver essa consciência para absorver e trilhar uma jornada de autoconhecimento que nos leva a agir de forma mais serena e tolerante frente às dificuldades e desafios, inclusive no gerenciamento do tempo, das expectativas e das frustrações.

Pessoas mais pacientes costumam ser mais respeitosas, maduras e menos frustradas.

Sem abrir mão das modernidades que aceleram o que é bom, ser paciente é uma virtude que nos permite viver melhor, entendendo que nem tudo acontece - nem deveria acontecer - exatamente quando desejamos.

Reflita sobre esses pontos e faça uma avaliação honesta do quão paciente você tem sido, ou não tem sido, com as coisas que lhe acontecem.