Virgil Abloh was an American fashion designer and entrepreneur.
61 Facts About Virgil Abloh
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Virgil Abloh assumed the role of Creative Director at Donda, West's creative agency in 2010.
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The first African-American to be artistic director at a French luxury fashion house when he joined LVMH in 2018, Virgil Abloh was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world that year.
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Virgil Abloh was born on September 30,1980, in Rockford, Illinois, to Ghanaian immigrant parents.
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Virgil Abloh's mother was a seamstress and his father managed a paint company.
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Virgil Abloh was raised in Rockford, where he attended Boylan Catholic High School, graduating in 1998.
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Virgil Abloh received his Master of Architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology in 2006.
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When Virgil Abloh was attending IIT, there was a building on campus under construction designed by the architect Rem Koolhaas.
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Virgil Abloh was further inspired by Crown Hall, a modernist masterpiece designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.
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Virgil Abloh first met musician Kanye West while working on his designs at a Chicago print shop.
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In 2012, Virgil Abloh designed the cover art for WZRD's self-titled debut.
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Virgil Abloh purchased deadstock clothing from Ralph Lauren for $40, screen-printed designs on them and sold them for prices upward of $550.
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Virgil Abloh closed the company down a year later as he did not intend it to be a commercial enterprise, but an artistic experiment.
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Virgil Abloh founded his first fashion house and second business overall in 2013 with the high-end streetwear brand Off-White, designing a logo inspired by Ben Kelly.
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Virgil Abloh said his first Off-White collection was inspired by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's floating glass home, Farnsworth House, and presented it with references to the Baroque artist Caravaggio and the early 20th century German design studio The Bauhaus.
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Virgil Abloh launched the company's women's wear line in 2014 and showed the collections at Paris Fashion Week.
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Virgil Abloh's line was selected as a finalist for the LVMH Prize, an industry award, but lost to Marques'Almeida and Jacquemus.
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Virgil Abloh launched his first concept store for Off-White in Hong Kong in 2014.
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Virgil Abloh opened his second store in Tokyo, Japan, where he started the company's furniture arm, Grey Area, followed by stores in Singapore and New York.
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Virgil Abloh partnered up with the Swedish furniture company IKEA to design furniture for apartments and houses as well as easy to carry tote bags with the word sculpture imprinted in the middle.
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Virgil Abloh envisioned that the collection would include practical furniture featuring contemporary designs.
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Virgil Abloh worked towards fulfilling his vision for the IKEA collection by sketching out drafts of generic pieces of furniture, while adding his own aesthetics to the designs by using a doorstop to level out furniture items.
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Virgil Abloh worked on designs for chairs, coffee tables, beds, storage cabinets, mirrors, and carpets apart of his collaboration with IKEA.
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Virgil Abloh used quotation marks to convey detachment from society and social norms.
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On March 25,2018, Virgil Abloh was named artistic director of Louis Vuitton's menswear ready-to-wear line, making him the first person of African descent to lead the brand's menswear line, as well as one of the few black designers at the helm of a major French fashion house.
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Virgil Abloh showed his first collection for Louis Vuitton at the 2018 Men's Fashion Week at the Palais-Royal gardens in Paris.
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Virgil Abloh was in high demand thereafter for his designs, creating an original outfit designed for Serena Williams to wear throughout the 2018 US Open, a collaboration with Nike.
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On June 5,2018, Virgil Abloh released a special collaboration with the luggage manufacturer Rimowa, a transparent suitcase in a limited edition.
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In March 2019, Virgil Abloh collaborated with IKEA to start making furniture for millennials, ranging from cabinets, rugs, coffee tables, and chairs.
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Virgil Abloh incorporated different elements of style, such as his quotation marks around certain words and putting it on different articles of clothing, and in this case different types of furniture.
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For example, Virgil Abloh created a "Door Stop Interruption" on a chair by adding a doorstop on one of the chair legs to make it elevated.
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In March 2019 Virgil Abloh teamed up with SSENSE to release a workout collection.
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Virgil Abloh included a three-dimensional addition of his four-way arrows, creating a cross, on the front of the tops and pants.
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Virgil Abloh was featured in conversation with his friend and frequent collaborator Takashi Murakami on the cover of the fall 2018 issue of Cultured magazine.
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In 2019, Virgil Abloh was appointed to the board of directors of The Council of Fashion Designers of America.
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Virgil Abloh created a custom Off-White gown and veil for Hailey Bieber's wedding day.
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Virgil Abloh was given a solo art show in Murakami's Kaikai Kiki art gallery in Tokyo, Japan.
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In 2019, Virgil Abloh introduced the MCA speech campaign for the CTA's Red Line train wrap.
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Virgil Abloh's influences included DJ's A-Trak, Benji B, and Gilles Peterson.
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Virgil Abloh played at Hi Ibiza and was booked for the 2019 edition of the Tomorrowland festival.
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In June 2019, Virgil Abloh was named to a DJ residency at Wynn Las Vegas's XS Nightclub, with Wynn agreeing to open an Off-White store.
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In June 2020, Virgil Abloh designed the original cover for Pop Smoke album, Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon.
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Virgil Abloh worked on album art for artists Lil Uzi Vert, Kid Cudi, and Westside Gunn.
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Virgil Abloh previously had a show on Apple Music 1 called "TELEVISED RADIO".
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Virgil Abloh noted that one of his principles is that a new design can be created by changing an original by only three percent.
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Virgil Abloh described his approach as being "ironic detachment" and that Duchamp's precedent "gives him the grounds to copy and paste, to take and to re-apply".
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Virgil Abloh received criticism in early 2019 when images of his Off-White team suggested a lack of cultural diversity at his head office.
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However, in December 2019 Virgil Abloh predicted that streetwear would die in 2020 as people moved to vintage clothing.
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Virgil Abloh raised $1 million for the scholarships which will be managed by the Fashion Scholarship Fund to assist Black students.
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Virgil Abloh spent significant amounts of his time to mentor and provide mentoring resources to young designers.
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Virgil Abloh received his first major award in 2011 when his work designing the cover art for American rappers Jay-Z and Kanye West's collaborative album Watch the Throne was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Recording Package.
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In 2015, Virgil Abloh was one of the finalists for the LVMH Prize.
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Virgil Abloh was the only American designer to be nominated for the award that year.
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Virgil Abloh received the Urban Luxe award at the 2017 British Fashion Awards.
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Virgil Abloh won International designer of the Year at the GQ Men of the Year awards in 2017.
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Virgil Abloh was listed as one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people in the world in 2018, one of two designers named that year.
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In December 2018, Virgil Abloh was honored as a leading innovator by Ebony Power 100.
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Virgil Abloh was nominated for 2019 Menswear Designer of the Year.
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Virgil Abloh lived in Chicago with his wife, Shannon, and their two children.
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In 2019, Virgil Abloh was diagnosed with cardiac angiosarcoma, a type of cancer, though he kept the diagnosis private.
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Virgil Abloh died on November 28,2021, at the age of 41, in Chicago.