Virgil Abloh, founder of Off-White and artistic director of the Louis Vuitton men’s collection since 2018, has died: according to the fashion house he was struck down by a tumor that he fought in secret for years
Virgil Abloh, one of the main protagonists of the world fashion scene, died. He was 41, and since 2018 he was the art director of Louis Vuitton’s men’s line as well as the CEO of Off-White, which he founded in 2013.
The news shocked the fashion world.
Abloh – according to the fashion house in a statement – died of cancer, an angiosarcoma
, who has been fighting in secret for years.
We are in shock, said LVMH president Bernard Arnault. Virgil was not only a genius a visionary but he was also a man with a beautiful soul and great wisdom. The LVMH family joins me in this time of great pain.
We are devastated by having to announce Virgil’s death – devoted father, husband, son, brother, and friend, reads the designer’s Instagram page.
–
Abloh – who was born in 1980 in Chicago into a family of Ghanaian descent, and had become personal friends with Kanye West studying with him at the University of Wisconsin – he leaves behind his wife, Shannon, children Lowe and Gray, sister Edwina, parents Nee and Eunice, and countless friends and colleagues, the official Abloh page still reads.
Abloh fought against angiosarcoma – a rare and aggressive tumor – for two years. He had chosen to conduct his battle privately ever since he received his first diagnosis, enduring numerous rounds of treatments while leading institutions in the fields of fashion, arts, culture. His work ethic, his infinite curiosity, his optimism have never failed. Guiding him were his passion for his art and his mission to open doors for others, to pave paths for greater equity in art and design. “Everything I do, I do for my 17-year-old myself,” he said.
–
Abloh had worked in Chicago street fashion before entering international fashion thanks to an internship at Fendi in 2009, alongside Kanye West. The two then begin an artistic collaboration that will launch Abloh’s career with the foundation of Off-White.
The designer had then taken care of the artistic direction of several albums of Jay-Z e West including Watch the Throne, and with this collaboration, in 2011, he had obtained a Grammy nomination for Best recording package.
–
In an interview released in 2018 to Corriere della Sera and published in the Liberi Tutti attachment, he answered the question about the long journey made by Illinois to Paris: beautiful, it gives me hope. But even the hopes don’t last long. You have to understand the signs. My was to see that designers would one day come from all over the world. A bit like a tourist who meets a purist. The second says to the first: “I live in fashion: don’t you know this? You don’t know whose jacket this is? But where do you want to go? “. The tourist replies: “I like fashion too and I want to get into it, but don’t beat me down just because I don’t know”. Here, I feel at the center of this conversation.
–
It’s still. I was the purist, I studied fashion, a lot, but I realized that I would never reach everyone, so I also became a tourist. D.when I was young I was a sponge. I was absorbing culture. Whether it was skateboarding, fashion, graffiti, art, DJs. Today I’m still the same hungry 17-year-old optimist, looking for inspiration everywhere. I will never try to be superior to that boy: my creativity comes from him.
–
He commented on his fundamental relationship with street wear in the same interview: I bet on something I grew up in. it was like seeing an empty table where no one was working, so I sat down and worked hard. When I was becoming a stylist, I told myself that I would not change: I would not become French with a black dress, nor would I pretend to arrive from Berlin with a turtleneck, to say maybe “when I was young I listened to hip hop”. It would have been funny. My brand was my resume. You wear streetwear, me too. And a beautiful phenomenon.
–
Continuing: When I was younger, mothers dressed in heels and the rest and daughters were inspired by boys and wore sneakers, jeans and T-shirts. P.Or the former said to the latter: “Put on something nicer”. Now all of a sudden the two ages have merged. For me this is streetwear. I just need to look out the window and see what people are wearing to draw something. So to do at Louis Vuitton.
–
November 28, 2021 (change November 28, 2021 | 20:44)
© REPRODUCTION RESERVED
–
—
