Virgil Abloh

An American fashion designer and fashion designer who has served as artistic director of menswear for Louis Vuitton since March 2018. In addition to his work at Louis Vuitton, Abloh is also the CEO of Milan-based label Off-White, a fashion house founded by Abloh in 2013.

Abloh was born in Rockford, Illinois to Ghanaian parents. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2002 and the Illinois Institute of Technology in 2006 with degrees in civil engineering and architecture, respectively. He entered the fashion world from an internship at Fendi in 2009, where he met rapper Kanye West. Virgil Abloh began to actively collaborate with Kanye on various creative projects, which eventually inspired Abloh to create his own clothing brand Off-White. Time magazine included Abloh in the "Time 100" list of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2018.

EARLY YEARS

Virgil Abloh was born on September 30, 1980 in Rockford in a family of emigrants from Ghana. His mother was a seamstress. Abloh grew up in Rockford, where he attended a private Catholic school, graduating in 1998. In high school, he met his future wife, Shannon. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2002 with a bachelor's degree in civil engineering. In 2006, Abloh graduated from the Illinois Institute of Technology with a master's degree in architecture.

After graduating from university, in 2009, Abloh entered the Fendi fashion house for an internship, getting into the same team with rapper Kanye West. While at the Fendi office in Rome, Italia Abloh and Kanye began collaborating on creative projects. A year later, West appointed Abloh as creative director of his advertising agency, DONDA. In 2011, West appointed Abloh to serve as art director for Jay-Z and Kanye West's upcoming album, Watch the Throne. In 2012, Abloh registered his first company, Pyrex Vision, a small streetwear boutique. Abloh bought clothes from the old collections of the Polo Ralph Lauren brand for forty dollars, put his own designs on them and sold them for prices that reached five hundred and fifty dollars. Abloh closed his company after a year, as his goal was not to create a commercially successful enterprise, but "to conduct an artistic experiment."

Abloh founded his first fashion house and second business overall in 2013. It was the high-end streetwear brand Off-White. To investors and critics, Abloh described his new company as "a gray area between white and black" or "Shades of white" - Off-White colors. The head office is located in Milan, Italy. The brand launched a line of fashionable women's clothing in 2014 and presented it at Paris Fashion Week. His collections were finalists for the LVMH award, but lost out at the Marques'Almeida and Jacquemus competitions. Abloh opened his brand's first concept store in Tokyo, Japan, where interior products were shown for the first time. In 2017, Abloh received proposals for a shoe collection with Nike dubbed "The Ten" where he revisited the designs of some of the company's most famous sneakers. Virgil has also worked with IKEA on furniture and home furnishings. According to a press release, these products are aimed primarily at "millennials" who will be furnishing their first home. The collection will be called "Markerad" (Swedish for clear, fresh, pronounced) and will be released in 2019.

In 2017, amid a certain rise in neo-nationalism, Abloh worked with neo-conceptual artist Jenny Holzer on a line that highlighted the positives of immigration, cultural integration and globalization. In December 2017, Virgil Abloh worked again with Jenny Holzer to design T-shirts for the Planned Parenthood charity in response to the Women's March on Washington.

SINCE 2018: LOUIS VUITTON

On March 25, 2018, Abloh was named Artistic Director of Louis Vuitton's menswear line, becoming the first black man to hold the position, and one of the few blacks to be included in France's top couturiers list. At the time of his inauguration, Abloh said: “It is a great honor for me to hold this position. I find the brand's heritage and creative integrity a source of inspiration for me and will keep them in mind, but also try to do contemporary things." Virgil Abloh showcased his first collection for Louis Vuitton in 2018 at the Paris Men's Fashion Week at the Palais Royal. The show featured Playboi Carti, Lacey, Steve, Dev Hines and Kid Cudi representing the "races of color".

PERSONAL LIFE

Abloh owns a house in Chicago's Lincoln Park, where he lives with his wife and two children, Lowe and Gray. He travels 350,000 miles a year (approximately 565,000 km) for his work. Virgil Abloh is a representative of the Ewe people from the Hannian region of Volta.

AWARDS AMD NOMINATIONS

Abloh received his first major award in 2011 for the design of Watch the Throne, the cover of which was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Musical Recording Art. Abloh also received the 2017 Urban Luxe award from the British Fashion Council. Virgil Abloh was included in the Time 100, a list of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2018.

DEATH

Virgil Abloh passed away on November 28, 2021 from cardiac angiosarcoma, which he had been battling for several years.