Virgil Abloh takes charge at "Louis Vuitton"
LVMH has appointed Virgil Abloh as artistic director of Louis Vuitton menswear with immediate effect where his first show for the maison will take place in June during Men’s Fashion Week in Paris. After months of speculation (ever since the collaboration between Supreme x Louis Vuitton), it is a huge move in the industry - completing the merger between streetwear with luxury, and hype with longstanding tradition. A disruption to the establishment. The American designer behind the streetwear label Off-White succeeds Kim Jones, who recently left the role to join Dior Homme, replacing Kris Van Assche.
Louis Vuitton’s Chairman and CEO Micheal Burke stated: “Having followed with great interest Virgil’s ascent since he worked with me at Fendi in 2006, I am thrilled to see how his innate creativity and disruptive approach have made him so relevant, not just in the world of fashion but in popular culture today.”
“It is an honor for me to accept the position of men’s artistic director for Louis Vuitton. I find the heritage and creative integrity of the house are key inspirations and will look to reference them both while drawing parallels to modern times,” says Abloh (37).
As well as having earned a degree in Civil Engineering and a Master's in Architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology, Abloh is additionally an artist, DJ, creative director, designer and uber-collaborator, having for example worked as Kanye West’s right-hand man overseeing multiple projects including stage shows and concert merchandise. Abloh’s brand Off-White c/o Virgil Abloh™️ was launched in 2012 as an artwork titled “PYREX VISION”, then known for screen-printed logos onto Champion t-shirts and dead stock from known designers including Ralph Lauren.
Since 2015, Off-White has presented seasonal men’s and women’s runway collections during Paris Fashion Week where the brand has led the charge in combining luxury with streetwear. The Off-White aesthetic stems from a range of influences, often combining sportswear references and performance fabrics, bold logos and graphics, and industrial details, including heavy-duty workwear straps. Made popular due to the dominance of “candid” street-style photos and a fanbase including supermodels Kendall Jenner and Bella Hadid, Off-White has gained a whopping 3.1m followers on Instagram and is hailed as one of the fastest-growing brands at retail.
Despite not having any formal training in fashion design, Abloh has mastered the art of “hype” and smart communication - designing for an Instagram generation where image is everything. While as a designer he does not bring originality, he has the expert ability to re-contextualise any innovation in any cultural field, which has sparked smash hit collaborations with the likes of Ikea, Jimmy Choo or Nike. What distinguishes his work from a sea of others? Those defining air quotes capturing words others have said, but in his own voice - naturally in Helvetica Bold font.
In our communication-driven times, the move in hiring Abloh, makes a lot of sense, where he himself is a media personality boasting 1.8m followers on Instagram. But one has to ask if hiring creative directors based on social media followings and designing for hype is sustainable in the long run? Critics and fashion insiders have mixed responses with Stavros Karelis stating "I couldn’t imagine anyone better than Virgil to carry on the legacy that Mr. Kim Jones left” while Style Zeitgeist's founder and editor Eugene Rabkin, responded to the appointment with an article entitled:
Louis Vuitton’s New Appointment Marks an Important Victory for Marketing Hype Over Design.
Abloh’s appointment at the most valuable luxury house in the world confirms that the traditional route in becoming a creative director - based on craft mastery, qualifications, and cultural cache - has vanished. A natural evolution from couturier to artistic director? Perhaps, yet I fear we are approaching a slippery slope, where “success” is based on online social media followings, “creativity” is constrained by short-term hype and “fashion” a short-sighted marketing exercise.
No matter. Who isn’t excited to see this new direction of “Louis Vuitton”?
