On November 28, 2021, the world stopped for a moment when it was announced that the Off-White designer and Artistic Director responsible for bringing Louis Vuitton menswear to the top of its game, Virgil Abloh, had passed. Abloh has had one of the most successful careers in fashion and even outside of fashion, permeating his talents into djing, art direction, and product design. He was the first Black designer to head an LVMH house in such a position, and he did so very well. His debut show with Louis Vuitton in 2018 was such a success that it brought him to tears; there are surreal moments experienced as an artist, and surely that was one of them for Abloh.
After getting his bachelors in civil engineering and his master’s in architecture, which requires great amounts of vision and imagination, Abloh went on to intern at Fendi, to soon move on to building his own creative experiment Pyrex Vision. This personal project propelled his career as he began to become well-known among other streetwear brands. He founded his own brand Off-White, which would become a fashion cultural phenomenon, in 2013. From then, he’s built an astounding world where truly anything is possible if you put your mind to it.
His last show with Louis Vuitton had a “Virgil Was Here” theme, and that moment was an amalgam of immense sadness and beauty. To pay homage to the late designer, we accumulated moments in time when Abhloh was at peak greatness in fashion history-making.
“Virgil Forever”