Virgil Abloh Virgil Abloh in an interview with GQ, talking about the influence of skateboarding on his career (Leitch, 2021)
One of the biggest names in fashion, let alone streetwear for the past 10 years has been Virgil Abloh, whether it be with Off-White or Louis Vuitton, it would be criminal not to give him a mention in terms of his accomplishments within the streetwear scene. With the passing of Abloh in late 2021, the fashion industry reflected on all of his achievements throughout his career, but in this section we’ll mainly look at his time at Off-White as I believe his influence was strongest in terms of his personal narrative on the scene. Abloh originally studied architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology, before then getting an internship at Fendi with a certain Kanye West, not a bad name drop to be fair, during this time, they worked closely with each other and Abloh becomes the creative director for Kanye’s creative agency, Donda. Through this, Abloh gains a platform and creates the grammy-winning artwork for Kanye and Jay-Z’s ‘Watch the Throne’ album. This has given Abloh enough momentum to create and launch Pyrex Vision in 2012, a brand based on printing on Ralph Lauren Polo’s with Pyrex, 23 on and reselling for $550 apiece. This only lasted a year, before he linked up with ‘New Guards Group’ to create a menswear label called Off-White. After the first year, Abloh started the womenswear as well, taking part in Paris Fashion week with both collections in 2014, the brand took off pretty much immediately and he owned this elite period of streetwear where Off-White was the brand to be wearing, with the iconic OW belt or the OW paint splatter hoodie, these items were some of the most popular and most sought after pieces in the whole streetwear market. Carrying on into 2017, Abloh wins the British Fashion award for Urban luxe brand, then in 2018, Abloh himself is named the artistic director for Louis Vuitton, replacing Kim Jones, his former mentor. (OFF-WHITE C/O VIRGIL ABLOH, 2019). 14
