Entrepreneur, DJ, Artist, Fashion Designer. Virgil Abloh is the designer of the 10s.
Virgil was born and raised in Illinois, USA. His father managed a paint company and his mother was a seamstress- the perfect ingredients for an all-rounder creative artist. It was when Abloh was studying for a master’s degree in Architecture when he sparked on interest in fashion. While studying, he would make t-shirts and write on a well-known blog, The Brilliance. While working on his designs in a Chicago print shop, he met rapper Kanye West who he would further work with in an internship with Fendi. This relationship was what launched Virgil’s Off-White label.
Famous for its use of capital letters, zip-ties, barricade tape and most importantly, quotation marks. Off-white’s brand is all about the now and giving today’s culture a platform to be discussed and celebrated. What is awakening about the brand is the context of how Abloh was names artistic director of Louis Vuitton in 2018. To me, Off-White is a more personal brand, demonstrating the interests and creative values that Virgil has.
2019 has been a big year for Off-white’s “quotation mark” embellishments. The 1.0 ‘Jitney leather shoulder bag’ is a perfect example of this. The bag is printed with “Logo”, “Cash inside” and ‘To Open’. This design emphasizes the function element of product design. The function element is often criticized by shoppers of a more high-street level. Is the theme of money a reflection of Abloh’s ideas or a criticism of what the fashion industry really is?
One of Virgil’s most memorable fashion moments of this year has to be his work for Hailey Bieber’s wedding dress. On her Instagram, she described the dress as her ‘dream dress’, people were taken by the unusual element to the dress. The dress again took on the quotation marks element of Off-White as embroidered, it reads “till death do us apart” at the bottom of the veil, again a bold statement of the now and living in the moment.
Off-White could be said to be the “brand of the century”- see what I did there. I look forward to seeing what other elements of culture and art the brand adopts as its own.
