Wk 11- Artist OTW- Student Choice
Artist: Virgil Abloh
Media: Fashion Designer, Architect, Director, DJ
Website: www.off---white.com
Instagram: @virgilabloh
Virgil Abloh is an American fashion designer, entrepreneur, architect, and DJ who has been the artistic director of Louis Vuitton’s men’s wear collection since March 2018. Virgil is also the chief executive officer of the Milan-based label Off-White, a fashion brand that he founded back in 2013. Abloh’s interests are in changing the style of youth fashion in today’s society. Virgil’s work really emphasizes the importance of youth culture and how they express themselves is very crucial to how society is in our modern age.
As I mentioned before, Abloh founded the streetwear brand “Off-White” which when asked about the meaning, he described it as the area between black and white, that’s why it’s called “Off-White.” In this clothing line, Virgil uses a lot of quotation marks, zip-ties, capital letters and barricade tape as a way for one to recognize his work. His work has a lot of straight lines and black and white colors on his clothes and shoes. Virgil does sometimes break his code and feature a color other than black and white on his clothes but rarely. Overall, his clothing line is mostly identified through the thick black and white lines he features on the front or back of his hoodies, shirts, and jackets.
Virgil believes that his work is inspiring the culture of the youth to change and for the better. Abloh grew up in a rough situation and didn’t have much growing up, and didn’t have high end clothes to wear and necessarily “look cool” as a kid. So now that he had the power to create high end clothes, he finds it ironic when looking back on where he started as a kid just wearing plain clothes. Now, his Off-White clothes display words such as “JACKET” on a jacket that he designed as an ironic jab at people who spend lots and lots of money on expensive clothes, but when it comes down to it, it’s just a jacket at the end of the day.
In my opinion, I think that Virgil’s work is very inspiring to the youth today. His journey from nothing to debatably one of the most well known fashion designers today is inspiring the youth to let them know that they can do anything they put their mind to no matter where they come from. From my experience, I always wanted to wear the “coolest” clothes as a kid but didn’t necessarily have the means to do that because my parents didn’t think it was important. I think it’s very crucial for the youth and the culture of the youth to feel inspired by someone such as Virgil and it’s very important to understand the message that he is trying to get across.
