The LVMH group announced on 28 November the passing of the artistic director of Louis Vuitton’s menswear collections, Virgil Abloh.
A star of the millennial generation and king of luxury streetwear, American designer Virgil Abloh, creator of the Louis Vuitton men’s collections, died of cancer on Sunday, at the age of 41, as announced by the LVMH group, the parent company of Louis Vuitton.
Virgil Abloh was born on 30 September 1980 in Rockford, Illinois, United States. A hip-hop fan, he began working as a high school D.J. before graduating in civil engineering from the University of Wisconsin and architecture from the Illinois Institute of Technology. In the early 2000s, he became an artistic consultant for Kanye West, advising him especially on the cover of his albums and concert sets.
Abloh became the king of luxury streetwear, and soon enough, he established himself in a few years as one of the coolest designers of his generation. Awarded several times for his work, he was offered, among others, the prestigious “Urban Luxe” award at the 2017 and 2018 British Fashion Awards.
He created Pyrex Vision in 2012, and a year later, Off-White was born, a luxury streetwear brand that imposed itself through the strength of its graphics and which later evolved into creations in the more “couture” area.
His creations were admired by millions, and, as it would be expected, many public voices expressed their condolences upon the designer’s passing. It was also announced that his final collection for Louis Vuitton, the spring-summer 2022 collection, would be presented on Tuesday, 30 November in Miami at 5:30, per his wishes. The video for the collection, which was released a while ago, had a rather mortuary feel to it, which was probably Abloh’s way of concentrating on this being one of his last collections. “I feel like I’m writing a book with these collections,” he said at the time.
In recent years, Abloh was also at the center of a very trendy scandal, after posting on his social media a screenshot showing that he had donated $50 to BLM and later posting a strong statement in which he expressed his disgust for those looting stores, claiming that they are worlds apart. After much criticism from loud voices, he expressed an apology, which was accepted by the masses who did not question anything about it.
The son of Ghanaian immigrants, Virgil Abloh was married and the father of two children, Lowe and Gray.
The illness he had been battling for two years had not been made public. He chose to fight privately after his 2019 diagnosis of cardiac angiosarcoma, a rare malignancy located in his heart, according to his family, who offered details in a post on the designer’s Instagram account, adding that Virgil had undergone many difficult treatments.
Virgil Abloh’s vision and clothes for LV and Off-White were very trendy and catered very much to hypebeasts and their wishes – it remains to be seen how the future will see these.
Fraquih and Franchomme
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