MIX MASTER
Virgil Abloh was a fashion designer who always did things differently. His path to the very top of the fashion industry – as artistic director of menswear for Louis Vuitton – was anything but conventional. And when he reached the apex of the fashion world – as designer for the world’s biggest luxury brand as well as the founder of his own very successful label, Off-White – he made sure he brought others up with him. Even the way he managed his illness, and death in late November at the age of 41, was unorthodox, preferring to keep it private with those closest to him, and to focus on his work. An aggressive and terminal form of cancer would have slowed most people down, but Abloh was unlike any other designer and, in the final weeks of his life, he maintained a packed schedule of events and projects around the world.
“Being one of the figureheads of minorities within the industry, I take very seriously the idea of championing diversity and inclusion … really taking it down to brass tacks”
From Abloh’s very first runway show for Louis Vuitton, it was clear he would be breaking the mould of what a fashion designer is and dismantling long-held traditions within the luxury industry in the process. For one thing, the spring/summer ’19 menswear show, was staged outdoors in an arcaded courtyard in the Palais, a reference to the 1985 charity song to raise money to fight famine in Ethiopia, and Abloh included in the show notes maps highlighting the global origins of each member of the cast. It was like a reboot of Louis Vuitton for a new generation of customers.
