On 29 November 2021, the LVMH Group issued a statement: VIRGIL Abloh, Artistic Director of LOUIS VUITTON Menswear and Director of OFF-WHITE, died of cancer on Sunday (28 November) at the age of 41. I remember the last time the entire fashion circle brushed the mourning screen was the equally high-profile legend - Lafayette Karl Lagerfeld. In fact, as soon as the news came out, I wanted to write about this topic, but I think too many articles have made everyone understand the way to understand this "three good youth" story, so I want to talk to you about something else, more to see what inspiration this top luxury creative director from this non-science class has for creative people?
In fact, virgil's reputation has always been mixed, some people question his "3% design rule", and some people think that his pioneering is unprecedented.
OFF WHITE's iconic arrow LOGO
Virgil Abloh partnered with Mercedes-Benz to design an artistic concept car inspired by the G-Class off-road vehicle
Virgil Abloh's Fall 2020 men's handbags for LV have also been created into a surrealist style composed of blue skies and white clouds
While everyone was swiping the screen to mourn Virgil, the eulogy of Francois-Henri Pinault, chairman and CEO of Kering Group, long considered "right to home", epitomized the essence of Virgil as a person: "Virgil Abloh brings the eyes of a new generation to many creative fields. He has contributed to making fashion more open and inclusive." Henri Pinault's eulogy is very interesting, he objectively points out Virgil's inspiration for the fashion world, but does not directly declare what a good designer he is.
Friends who have heard a little about fashion must know that virgil Abloh has almost become a blockbuster machine in the past few years, and thus has built its own discourse system in the high-barrier Paris haute couture world. He has too many labels on him: grassroots, black, street, non-class... To be able to stand up to prejudice and move forward must be based on firm faith. As Virgil Abloh said in an interview with the fashion academic journal VESTOJ earlier this year: "What I left behind should not be an object, not even an aesthetic, it is about redefining what a creative person can or should be today." ”
Perhaps for a long time, our understanding of fashion, design and other fields has always been bound to well-known universities, which is true, but will it also fall into the established trap? American popular science writer and media theorist Steven Johnson once expressed his views on "creativity" in the book "The Birth of Great Ideas": "People usually romanticize the process of subversive innovation, imagine a great idea beyond the limitations of the environment, and turn out to be born, but in fact, new ideas are more like finding some new ideas from some old ideas and rigid traditions", so he encourages everyone to do some very daily things, such as walking, cultivating a variety of interests, and keeping the folder messy. Frequent cafes etc. At this latitude, can Virgil's "citation-style" design count as a re-creation of text or symbols? Who says that "text" and "typography" can't be a design element in itself?
The scarf designed by Virgil Abloh uses only the "SCARF" letter as a design element
Virgil Abloh and IKEA's co-branded series are also simple text stickers
As a creative, perhaps the greatest benefit of non-science classes is that Virgil never defines himself, saying, "I learned something important from the Bauhaus, or that early architectural education taught me that there are no boundaries between the mediums, only human perceptions."
Virgil Abloh and Nike's new series Off-White x Nike Dunk Low "THE 50" is also a design that has aroused criticism, and the color differentiation of 50 pairs of sneakers depends on some accessories that will not serve as the main theme of color matching, so netizens questioned: Is the top co-branded sneaker just a simple shoelace change game?
Image source: NIKE
As a street culture lover and sneaker consumer, Virgil's design of sneakers is obviously with his own understanding of trend culture. In the past, when people bought luxury brands, designers were the main consideration, but the consumption characteristic of "personalization" undoubtedly made the meaning of the product itself weakened by the designer's symbol, so Virgil tried to bring a new development logic based on commercial considerations - to symbolize sneakers.
The Ten series, designed by Virgil Abloh in collaboration with Nike, is at the forefront of symbolizing sneakers
The outbreak of fashion shoe culture makes the sneaker market too saturated, and consumers often do not have much choice, perhaps people do not care about the color matching itself, but care about the recognition brought by the color matching. If fashion itself is a language, then "symbolization" is indeed the fastest way to express oneself. From this point of view, Virgil is not a pure conceptual school, but a realist who constantly pursues the realization of concepts.
The reason why street culture has been spurned by orthodox haute couture in the past is probably that street culture is popular and popular, so it is difficult to be elegant, but does art really have to be divorced from the public to complete the so-called spirituality? I think it's like Lady Gaga singing in the album's title single, Applause: "In the past, pop culture was an art, now, art is a kind of pop culture, and art is me."