“In a world where kindness is rare, where hierarchies still carry weight and where fashion can change the rules but sometimes ends up creating new ones, there was you. You changed the system with your genius, your humility and your authenticity. You led by example. You taught and inspired millions of young people and filled our days with the energy and optimism of those who want to change the world for the better.” This is what the Off-White team wrote on Instagram as a tribute to its founder and CEO Virgil Abloh, who passed away on November 28th due to a rare form of cancer. Across London, Paris, Hong Kong, New York, Tokyo and many other cities, the brand honored Abloh’s creative genius by transforming its single-brand stores into botanic gardens, replacing products with flowers – a homage reminiscent of the label’s SS20 catwalk.
In occasion of the SS22 collection preview, Louis Vuitton displayed the sculpture of a toy airplane decorated with a pattern of clouds in the courtyard of its Milanese boutique. This was one of the most evoked images by Abloh, fond of childhood iconography – free from limitations on artistic property and, therefore, democratic.
During Paris Fashion Week, Off-White presented a collection that was clearly deeply pervaded by Abloh’s unique touch: Spaceship Earth: An “Imaginary Experience”. The show was meant to bring together contrasting worlds by developing oddly complementary themes, but it also increased uncertainty around the future of the brand without its creator. Unsurprisingly, white flags displaying “Question Everything” quotes intermingled on the open-space runway. Indeed, at least momentarily, the role of creative director will not be filled, due to the brand’s intention to pursue a more collective approach.
Abloh founded the then-called “Pyrex Vision” in 2012, and subsequently rebranded the company as Off-White, which he described as “the grey area between black and white”, and chose diagonals, white arrows and plain labels as the core to its design aesthetic. Mixing wealth and accessibility was one of Abloh’s main creative goals, but “being able to brand content that shapes a generation is not a small thing”. Moreover, his later nomination as artistic director of Louis Vuitton menswear was well-perceived by the market, with K. Austin Collins, editor for Vanity Fair, arguing that“Off-White’s signature diagonal stripes and ironic quotation marks are, for hypebeasts and the star-obsessed, as coded and class-aware as interlocking L.V. monograms are to another generation.”
Alex Castro, an illustrator at the Verge, tried to explain the brand’s success: “All of the power of Off-White is in the quotation marks. It seems dumb at first glance, and then you end up thinking about the humor in it, and then you end up thinking about society and the rules we live in, and capitalism and norms and wherever that leads you… But then I still end up thinking it’s kind of dumb again. Because it’s so simple and approachable, a lot of streetwear kids may think it’s deeper than it really is. Similar to Rick and Morty, it makes people feel smart, but is it really saying something about capitalism and society that already hasn’t been said? Probably not.”
By Erica Balbinot
One Comment
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