Virgil Abloh was here (and there and everywhere), the designer of the 21st century #IntimatePortraits
// By: Ernesto Cruz
Mon December 13, 2021
#IntimatePortraits is a new WARP series in which we delve into the psychology of the work of the most relevant to the music industry. In this case, we're talking about designer and creative director Virgil Abloh.
And from the yellow segment of the rainbow comes Virgil Abloh. He takes his head and gives a grateful look to all the people in the front row. He is the first Afro-descendant designer to take the position of creative director of the Louis Vuitton menswear line. He knows it, he is very aware of that fact because it is the one that defines the reason for his entire career.
He bursts into tears and the public reciprocates with that delivery: a standing ovation. She makes her way through the path of colors and is very clear about where she wants to go... She tries to wipe the tears from her cheekbones and looks up to meet Kanye West's eyes.
A fraternal and cathartic hug that lasted just 17 seconds; but it feels like the end of a watershed in "popular culture". A hug that symbolizes the summit in the work to vindicate the talent of the black community in the western world. Virgil was there, for them, for theirs.
Virgil Abloh was born on September 30, 1980 in Rockford, a small county on the outskirts of Chicago. The first part of his life was marked by three things: music, skateboarding and above all, basketball; Naturally, considering that in the same year that he turned twelve, Michael Jordan and his Bulls won the first of six NBA championships to build one of the most legendary dynasties in sports history.
Virgil always knew where he wanted to go and spent his teenage years sending sketches and mockups to the Nike offices in Oregon; although without obtaining an answer, as expected.
The truth is that, from an early age, even knowing that he had to sharpen his design skills in order to develop an effective commercial intuition, it was already clear that each idea and each intervention spoke his language and were a reflection of that identity that was nourished by a popular culture at its peak: clothes, tennis, buildings, beats, characters, entertainment…
His first production was made under the signature CEAS1, an alias that began as his tag to venture into graffiti; but that became the signal to know that Virgil was there: on the walls, at parties and in the workshops as part of the <>
Interestingly, it was not basketball that aroused in him his concern about the link between aesthetics and commercialization, but soccer, a sport he played since he was a child and witnessed his growth in the United States during the 1990s. 90's.
''I've always found it fascinating how so many elements coexist on a soccer jersey: the team crest, the player's name and number, the sponsors' logos, and the patterns that make up the jersey's design. . It's something that the other typical sports in American culture don't have.''-Virgil Abloh in an interview for Highsnobiety
His mother and father, Ghanaians by birth but pursuers of the American dream since the late 60s, were always promoters of Virgil's passions, under the condition that he never stop studying and eventually obtain a university degree. That is why he was always an exemplary student.
‘’I think there are two keys to Virgil being so successful: how tidy he is and his ability to have energy even after only three hours of sleep. His whole life has been like this. He's a fan of itineraries and scheduling.'' – Edwina Abloh, Virgil's sister for The New York Times.
In the spring of 1998, he was accepted into the civil engineering program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It didn't take long for him to realize that he wasn't interested in the professional profile of that career; however, he decided to finish the course for his family's peace of mind. In 2002, shortly after graduating with his undergraduate degree, he returned to school, this time at the Illinois Institute of Technology to begin his master's degree in architecture.
Unlike his first contact with higher education, this postgraduate course was fundamental in changing his entire perspective on design. It was there that he came across industrial aesthetics and the deconstructivist movement: a current derived from the urban plan that the Soviets applied to their cities during the 1980s, characterized mainly by the alteration of symmetry from the strengthening of volumes in huge buildings.
The first to coin the term «deconstruction» was the philosopher Jaques Derrida, who after his interaction with the formalist architect Peter Eisenman became interested in the possibility of reversing the conventional structure of buildings without altering their functionality. This conception did not find popularity until Bernard Tschumi won the Parc de la Villette in 1986.
Two years later, this aesthetic intention exploded thanks to the fact that the biggest names of the time began to work according to these new parameters: Zaha Hadid, Daniel Libeskind, Philip Johnson and Mark Wigley, the latter two organizers of the design fair of MOMA and to whom the institutionalization of "deconstruction" is owed.
This short story is vital to understand the conformation of Virgil Abloh as a designer and artist, since it was on this that he laid the foundations of all his subsequent work.
Towards the end of his master's degree in Architecture, Virgil moved away from the objects of study of the degree and began to work on ideas for pieces of furniture, textiles and digital art.
He himself says that it was a professor at the university who detected this situation and encouraged him to leave software like AutoCad to delve into the Adobe suite and music production programs.
It wasn't until his first trip to New York that Virgil felt he could be part of a community with whom he could share likes, interests and goals.
Boutiques of emerging brands like a life were the epicenter of a movement about to explode. The kind of places that at that time were visited by still unknown names like Ronnie Fieg, Matthew Williams and Yoon Ambush herself.
All these promising minds found the same roof at splay, the website founded by Samuel Spritzer -programmer of the first online pages of Kaws and Supreme- that functioned as a kind of board where the entire New York community exchanged projects, references and feedback.
All this energy motivated Virgil to start his first streetwear project made up of t-shirts and sweatshirts printed by his own designs: Fort Home.
In truth, the pop-ups he hosted for the brand in Chicago and New York only resonated with his group of friends; however, the good execution of the pieces earned him a job at the prestigious Custom Kings, dedicated to the design and printing of textiles that at that time worked the stock of Famous, Quite Life and Plan B. The great virtue that the Custom Kings team in Virgil was his sensitivity to distribute and take advantage of spaces, an attribute that would explode until his days at OFF WHITE and Louis Vuitton.
The people who frequented the Custom Kings studio were really inspiring to Virgil, and without a doubt, the most important was Don C: godfather of the new Chicago fashion community and close collaborator of Kanye West during his early years of trajectory. After several months of interacting and forming a solid friendship, Don C brought Virgil to the offices of John Monopoly, who at the time was already managing Kanye and other burgeoning West Coast rappers.
''From the first moment I trusted Virgil because I thought he was a gentle and kind boy. Always willing to learn, he asked me for an opportunity to join the team and after learning about his work, I didn't hesitate one bit. Some time later we found out that the day of our first meeting had been his master's degree graduation ceremony and he preferred to come with us to get to know each other. From there I knew I hadn't been wrong about him.'' -John Monopoly on Virgil Abloh for TMZ.
Joining the team of Don C, John Monopoly and Kanye set off a chain reaction that expanded Virgil's network of contacts: designers, public relations people, communication agents, models, musicians and artists of all stripes. The next key person in Abloh's life was Kim Jones, the current creative director of Dior who in 2006 was considered the great promise of English fashion after winning the Brit Fashion Award as emerging figure of the year.
In the summer of 2007 Virgil crossed the Atlantic to spend the entire summer in the apartment of Kim Jones, who he shadowed to learn as much as possible about the industry and the business. Virgil admired Kim's ability to combine urban fashion with the requirements of formal etiquette.
Upon his return to the United States, Kanye was in preparation for his Glow In The Dark tour, a tour to promote his album Graduation (2007). For his professional interests, working on this tour not only represented the opportunity to advise the stage design, visuals and merchandise, but also the possibility of interacting with Takashi Murakami, another of his great heroes.
This process made Virgil and Kanye cement their brotherhood; and with everything and the success they already had, they sought to fulfill their dreams of being educated in haute couture fashion as they believed it should be: The way Cristobal, Christian, Yves and Karl learned, in the workshops from trace mechanisms, pattern making, sewing and clothing.
‘’They both came to my office to formally apply for a space in the annual program of the Central Saint Martins School of Design. I laughed very hard and told them that they were stupid. What could this school offer them that they didn't already know? They answered: <>.-Louis Wilson, academic coordinator of the master's degree in fashion design at Saint Martins.
In the face of Louis Wilson's refusal, both pulled their strings to enter the six-month internship organized by Fendi to learn the ABC's of their creative and production protocols.
‘’I don’t think either of us knows exactly how he got a spot on that Fendi show. And the truth is that many could say that we did nothing: we spent all our time asking questions and going for coffee; but it did force us to reflect on what it means to work under pressure in this world. Virgil became the master of Photoshop, I have never seen someone as fast as him.'' -Kanye West for GQ.
2007 and 2008 put Virgil on the map of European fashion, particularly in the eye of Michael Burke, who was a member of the executive board of Fendi and who was occupying big chairs in all the major fashion consortiums during the years. ten years, including one at Louis Vuitton.
Despite the fact that Kanye was already collaborating with LV and that Virgil was friends with the new generation of fashion, the other haute couture designers of that generation looked at them with suspicion, as if they were outsiders trying to appropriate their territory. It was not a circumstantial position: the way in which both wanted to democratize haute couture from urban culture and their skin color represented a threat against the status quo that the big houses cemented for decades.
‘’They have wanted to call him in many ways; but it was racism. They couldn't stand that we had such a drive to learn and that some industry giants had our back.''-Don C on his clan's treatment at fashion week 2009.
Kanye's musical consecration brought Virgil the definitive launch from the position of creative director in three of his masterpieces: My Beautiful Twisted Dark Fantasy (2010), Watch The Throne (the collaborative album with Jay-Z) and Yeezus (2013). Cover design, collaborator management and all the visual identity of the three albums were in charge of Virgil.
With this media and financial boost, Abloh launched PYREX, a purely personal project that he described as a ten-minute movie in one location in which a certain non-sports team shows us how to be cool. Although he initially did not intend for PYREX garments to see the light; but his discursive value took on a force that not even he could stop.
From the name, which alluded to a tool crack cooks use to create methamphetamine. In a way, the first collection of this brand synthesized everything that Virgil wanted to convey to the world: youth always wins, and it was a kind of paradox to defend groups of marginalized children and adolescents who live under the stigma of being gang members alone. for living in low-income areas.
For Pyrex, they sought to model people congruent with that vision, and none more suitable than the members of the A$AP Mob: Iliz, Nast, Bari, Josh plus Naleye Junior, Ian Connor. and Jim Joe, best-known urban artist for being in charge of painting the iconic lyrics on the cover of Drake's If You're Reading This, It's Too Late.
Pyrex became Virgil's laboratory in terms of design, marketing, public relations and sales; and with that, without wanting to, he reconsidered the concept of hype within fashion.
Virgil had a manual to make this project successful:
1. Buy textiles that are cheap to the best of your ability, but of acceptable quality. Under this premise, Pyrex's t-shirts and sweatshirts were actually balances of Ralph Lauren and Champion basics that he later screen-printed with his designs.
2. Make the designs easy to recognize.
3. Give away your clothes to influential people so that their community asks about them.
4. Sells limited quantities for very high prices. What cost the brand 60 usd, it recovered with prices of up to 550 dollars.
5. Use your earnings for the next project.
PYREX garments were extremely simple: solid primary colors, prints inspired by paintings or photographs, and Michael Jordan's number 23 on the back. This was the first time that Abloh was criticized for overpricing his products without real added value in terms of design and quality; but he knew that the most important thing was not to revolutionize pattern making and clothing, but to give symbols of identity to a movement in gestation. Those who bought at those prices knew they were sending a message: We are the new cool kids on the block.
It was the summer of 2016. Nike executives began to envision a severe crisis if the inertia of success spun by Adidas over the last four years did not stop: Kanye's Ultraboost and Yeezys were the most sought-after pieces by own and strangers. In public opinion it was said that Nike was stuck in nostalgia and that its ideas did not seem to fit into the general conception of what was thought about the future. The offices in Oregon were clamoring for a counterattack plan that would relaunch the brand at any cost.
They asked for advice from Nike's closest circle: from storied names like Tinker Hatfield, Michael Jordan and Mark Parker, to the brand's favorite characters: Jeff Staple, Jan Takahashi, LeBron James, Eric Coston and Hiroshi Fujiwara. In particular, the latter was the protagonist of the first stage of the renewal strategy: at Nike they knew that the key was in their archives, given the failure of most of their new silhouettes; but they had to reinterpret all those classics so that they were up to what the public of the 21st century needs.
The minimalist aesthetic of Fujiwara and Fragment –his brand- seemed like the ideal collaborators to face the three stripes. Not because the request was concrete made it any less difficult; and although we have never had full access to that first proposal, we know that it was dismissed as dull and lacking in courage. The Air Max 1, Jordan 3, Cortez, and AF1 are some of the silhouettes Hiroshi presumably took for that pitch. It was then that Nike understood that they needed someone even more radical to rock the market.
Virgil's background with PYREX and the meteoric success that OFF WHITE was beginning to have as a high-end streetwear brand drew eyes to him.
Jordan 1, Blazer, Chuck Taylor, Air Force 1 and Hyperdunk. Air Max 90, Air Max 97, Presto, Foam and Vapormax. 5 essential basketball silhouettes to understand Nike's historical legacy in this sport. 5 essential running silhouettes to understand the style revolution that Nike launched from running shoes. The Ten. Ten icons of the brand reinvented by the man of the moment.
From the second half of 2017 to autumn 2018 we witnessed an unprecedented event in urban culture. A collaborative collection that changed the course not only for Nike and the world of tennis, but for fashion in general.
What Virgil began to imagine when he sent his sketches to the brand's offices when he was barely 15 years old, finally materialized.
‘’On his first morning at Nike headquarters, Virgil showed up with zinchos, markers, an X-Acto knife, and a pencil. He took the Air Force 1 and began cutting panels here and there. When the pair was finally dissected, he glued it back together but this time altering the order of the parts, rather abruptly, as if he wanted to mess it up on purpose. Finally, he intervened with his tags. It looked like we were seeing the inside of the shoe but exposed.'' -Dan Long, file manager at Nike headquarters.
The idea was exactly that: for the public to know the closest thing to a test version of the silhouettes, with their identification codes for the production chain, with incomplete and inaccurate finishes and with disproportionate materials according to the distribution of space . Its dazzling white was made to take on a vintage yellowish typical of products that suffer the passage of time; as well as its distinctive ghosting, described as transparent solid structures that reveal not only the inside of the shoe but also the foot that wears it. Principle inspired by what the legendary Tinker Hatfield did with the air capsule of the Air Max line.
The launch was a resounding success and revived a game that lacked nuance after the unquestionable victories of the German brand. Its resale prices triggered the explosion of a secondary market that began to adopt a speculation mechanism to delimit its figures.
The Ten was worn by the entire jet set: Michael Jordan, Drake, A$AP Rocky, Bella Hadid, Roger Federer, Beyonce…Owning the entire collection became the equivalent of a grail quest in popular culture.
Virgil Abloh passed away on November 28, 2021 from a very aggressive cancer affecting his heart that he had to deal with since his diagnosis in 2019.
Beyond the relevance of his work, there was no person who came across him who did not have something beautiful to say about him. He is always attentive, always gentle. And from that position he demonstrated that you don't need to be a tyrant or a despotic leader to inspire an entire generation.
''No matter what you did or how long you'd been at it, he always believed in you. His curiosity was endless and his work ethic was faultless. He was determined to be an example that it doesn't matter where you come from, but where you're going. It was authentic. You could see the father, the designer, the businessman, the husband, the friend... Always the same: faithful to his kindness. He always had the doors open for whoever needed it. -Shannon Abloh, wife of Virgil.
Designer. Architect. Publishing advisor. Sneakerhead. Sportsman. DJ. Illustrator. Skater. Forth Home. Pyrex. Off White. Nike. pioneer. Ikea. Mercedes Benz. Louis Vuitton. kanye. Don C. John Monopoly. Bella Hadid. Hailey Bieber. Kim Jones. Flock. Lowe. Shanon. Here. There. Today. Always. Virgil.
