Virgil Abloh: a revolutionary vision for the Maison Louis Vuitton

Virgil Abloh and his history in the fashion industry

The beginnings of a visionary

Virgil Abloh was born on September 30, 1980 in Rockford, Illinois, USA. After graduating from the University of Wisconsin with a degree in civil engineering, he continued his education by studying modern technology. He obtained a Master of Architecture degree from the Illinois Institute of Technology.

Virgil has always had a particular interest in the creative world, and as a teenager he began to express his artistic fibre through music, and started to work as a DJ. The premises of the designer’s vision begin to develop, looking at creation in a totally new way, and preferring to work from existing fragments of our culture.

His beginnings in fashion

At the age of only 22, Virgil Abloh became the right-hand man and stylist of the rapper and artistic director Kanye West, he then saw his role expand in the scenography and merchandising management of the label.

In 2009, his career in fashion took a real turn when, at the age of 29, he started an internship at the luxury fashion house Fendi. Following this internship, the designer decided to launch his first concept store in his hometown, Chicago. In this place, named RSVP Gallery, green neon lights shine on the works of the most fashionable streetwear designers.

In 2012, Virgil Abloh decided to create his own label: Pyrex Vision; famous for its logo “Pyrex 23” with sober colors, his label has been a flamboyant success. Many capsule collections allowing many renowned artists to affix their signatures. Virgil Abloh has seen his label installed in the most influential concept stores and alongside the biggest luxury houses. Despite this success, his label closed 1 year later.

The birth of an empire : Off-White 

At the end of 2013, the birth of a project that will make the visionary shine, his first fashion clothing brand is born: Off-White. The label with the black and white signature and diagonal stripes offers a high-end positioning, quickly attracting an international audience. Drawing inspiration from Nicolas Ghesquière’s fall-winter 2012/2013 collection for Balenciaga, the label will be a real fascination for the streetwear pieces that will be worn by the most famous fashion houses.

Over the years, always looking for more ambitious projects, the success of his brand goes through many bold collaborations: IKEA, Jimmy Choo, Nike … Collaborations that allow him to maintain a subtle blend of streetwear, luxury, art that he defines himself as “the gray area between black and white.”

The Virgil Abloh revolution at Louis Vuitton

The big surprise: his arrival at Louis Vuitton

The year 2018, marks a real stepping stone for Virgil Abloh: he is appointed artistic director for the men’s collections of the prestigious French house Louis Vuitton. He becomes one of the first designers of color in a fashion house, a real ascension for the one who has been campaigning for many years for the establishment of diversity and inclusion in creative areas.

As soon as he arrived at Louis Vuitton, the designer did what he does best, which is to rebuild and refresh with audacity without ever denaturing the very essence of the emblematic house and contributing to the promotion of an eco-responsible design approach.

Virgil Abloh x Nigo collaboration for Louis Vuitton

Announced in 2020, the “LV ²” collection imagined by Virgil Abloh and Nigo is a prestigious collaboration between two streetwear revolutionaries who have imagined a collection for Louis Vuitton that moves away from urban fashion. Inspired by the British dandy and Japanese culture, the wardrobe appropriates the codes of the French house in order to imagine elegant silhouettes with high-end workmanship where the worlds of the two designers come together.

The brand’s iconic “LV Damier Check” blend, a patchwork construction bringing a more modern dimension to classic suit shapes, ubiquitous denim symbolizing Japanese fashion and the iconic Louis Vuitton monogram, thus paying homage to the history of the French house.

The fashion shows that have marked the minds

Louis Vuitton Mens Spring-Summer 2019 fashion show

His first men’s collection for Louis Vuitton (Spring/Summer 2019) was hosted in the sumptuous gardens of the Palais Royal in Paris; for the occasion the catwalk was transformed into a sublime rainbow, a small nod to the LGBTQ + community. A collection in his image, advocating diversity in front of an audience filled with celebrities such as his friend Kanye West, Takashi Murakami, and many others.

This first fashion show gave birth to a new era, a collection of sober colors sprinkled with touches of fluorescent hues and multicolored pieces, portraying a portrait of an accomplished man, embodied by all ethnicities.

The feedback from the fashion show was unanimous: it was a huge success.

Louis Vuitton men’s Fall-Winter 2020 fashion show

For this season, Virgil Abloh decided to take over the Tuileries with an incredible decor in the form of a surreal cloudy sky built from scratch where various craftsmen’s tools such as a wrench, a paintbrush or an oversized axe are displayed on the floor.

For this show, the designer redefines the “streetwear” thematic and looks at the more traditional dress codes: patchwork on suit jackets, pieces made with cuts for a deconstructed style or a total look in leather.

“Surrealism is to make the extraordinary from the ordinary” we could read on the note of the show.

On the bag side, to celebrate the heritage of Maison Louis Vuitton, the designer unveiled a range of bags where the monogram print reigns supreme with versions of the famous classic LV monogram revisited: Trunk bags sublimated with surrealist patterns, Keepall blue contrasting, multi-pocketed bananas or monogrammed models version “doudou”.

The last fashion show

Qualified as the most anticipated show of the Fashion week 2022, Louis Vuitton unveiled the “Louis Dreamhouse” as a final tribute to the one who greatly succeeded in his bet to merge his streetwear essence with the letters of nobility of the luxury industry.

Direction the Carreau du Temple in Paris, where the house of Louis Vuitton designed a spectacular decor based on an original idea of the Artistic Director of the House. A dreamhouse that mixed a steep meadow, a clinker cottage, a country guest house and a huge dinner table – all in Mayan blue – around which an orchestra was installed.

The heart of this fashion show, naive and childish cartoon characters in rock star style red carpet outfits, with tracksuits, oversized nylon impers, college jackets or monogrammed denim jackets.

A type of counter-attack addressed to all those who reduced Virgil Abloh to luxury streetwear. A collection this time composed of many pieces with sharp cuts.

Clap of the end, a moving salute

To close this spectacular show, six silhouettes dressed as brides and grooms in perfect dresses and trains winking at the opening looks of Virgil Abloh’s first fashion show.

The emotion was at its best, models and Louis Vuitton team scattered on the podium, next to the orchestra under the grateful applause of the public.

Exhibitions in honor of Virgil Abloh

“Figure of Speech” the first exhibition

Entitled “Figure of Speech” the first exhibition dedicated to the artist was held in July 2022 at the Brooklyn Museum, a retrospective looking at the different facets of the work displayed by the designer.

From design to art, through fashion and its many collaborations with clothing, sculptures, immersive installations, films or archival sketches.

An immersion in the heart of Virgil Abloh’s visionary and exciting creativity.

“Coming of Age” thought in 2019 by Virgil Abloh

Thought by the designer in 2019, the exhibition “Coming of Age” first took place in the Art Gallery “Little Big Man Gallery” traveling then to the four corners of the world: Milan, New York, Seoul …

An exhibition that gave students, artists and local communities access to a “Do It Yourself” workshop so they could create their own fanzine from the works they enjoyed the most.

To celebrate the Artistic Director, the Louis Vuitton Foundation hosted the exhibition in April 2022 for a period of two weeks.

“Coming of Age” recalls the different themes of predilection: diversity, youth, different cultures and social classes. Themes that were so dear to the designer that allowed him, since his arrival at Louis Vuitton, to disrupt the codes and open minds by welcoming the inclusion of people long forgotten and snubbed by an environment too often elitist.

Credits:

Vogue.fr

Journaldesfemmes.fr

Marieclaire.fr