LOUIS VUITTON FALL 2021 MENSWEAR: WEST VS EAST, TOURIST VS PURIST

By Raelen Todd (Advertising and Marketing Communications, ‘24)

“Make it up to me, take down the walls, deconstruct the narrative.” This quote was a part of a spoken word opening by Saul Williams at the Louis Vuitton Fall 2021 Menswear runway show that immediately informed the audience that this is not just a show, but a message. Designed by Virgil Abloh, this collection titled ‘Ebonics’ was an informative experience that expressed the importance of inclusion, recognition, reparations, and the voice of Black and oppressed consciousness in the realm of high fashion. Based off of James Baldwin’s essay ‘Stranger in the Village’ Virgil’s sixth collection for Louis Vuitton invited back his ‘Tourist vs. Purist” mentality, which can be seen painted on some handbags in the collection, for the first time since 2018. “Stranger in the Village” appears to be one of the earliest representations of this notion as it speaks about the struggles of a Black man living in a village where the color of his skin was not seen as human but as a “living wonder.” He knew the people of the village truly meant no “unkindness” with the way they treated him regarding him being a Black man. This correlates directly to the fact that the tourist is someone wide-eyed, ready to learn about new discoveries, and the purist who is already an expert on the given subject.

LOUIS VUITTON MEN’S COLLECTION FALL 2021

Virgil speaks directly to the high fashion world during his show by saying, “You know when all the girls used to take things for runways or ballrooms, it’s not stealing, or robbing or looting: it’s stepping into a fantasy that shouldn’t be a utopia but just a living right. I think as Black people and as trans people and as marginalized people the world is here for our taking for it takes so much from us.” He’s expressing that the Black person who has been a tourist within this industry for centuries, can (like himself) become the purist. By speaking to the gatekeepers who lock people of color out of the fantasy that is high fashion, he communicates to the world that the oppressed are finally taking over the spaces where they’ve been excluded, and reclaiming what’s owed to them, a world of opulence in which they inspired.

Virgil used this collection to clash the ideas of African culture with Westernization to prove that the two can live cohesively when the West isn’t trying to colonize its counterpart. His use of kente cloth and checked fabrics to create pleated skirts and outerwear proved how well the East and West can coincide when they are living in conjunction. In his essay, James Baldwin stated: “No road whatever will lead Americans back to the simplicity of this European village where white men still have the luxury of looking at me as a stranger. One of the things that distinguish Americans from other people is that no other people has ever ever been so deeply involved in the lives of Black men, and vice versa. This fact faced with all its implications, it can be seen that the history of the American Negro problem is not merely shameful, it is also something of an achievement- It is precisely this black-white experience which may prove of indispensable value to us in the world we face today. This world is white no longer, and it never will be white again.”

The way Virgil uses this story, this direct quote, to prove to the audience that we do reside in a place of history where whiteness and culture live side by side, through fashion, is impeccable. To inform the world of the importance of diversity, by not only the individuality of a culture alone but of the mix of cultures, through fashion, is a feat many have yet to successfully accomplish.

Make it up to me, take down the walls, deconstruct the narrative.

Saul Williams

LOUIS VUITTON MEN’S COLLECTION FALL 2021

LOUIS VUITTON MEN’S COLLECTION FALL 2021

LOUIS VUITTON MEN’S COLLECTION FALL 2021