Virgil Abloh

03.18.22

VirgilAbloh

Kelytsha Paisley

21007643

An architect by training, he was a stylist, artistic director for men at Louis Vuitton, the founder of the Off-White a brand based in Milan, where he used to mixing luxury and streetwear. He also was a designer, a dj and for a time right-hand man of American rapper Kanye West.

Virgil Abloh, was born on September 30, 1980 in Rockford, and died on November 28, 2021 in Chicago. He was married with Shannon Abloh and have two kids.

Virgil Abloh launched a concept store in 2009 in Chicago, "RSVP Gallery", a mix of shop and gallery exhibiting design and art. In 2011, Virgil Abloh was the artistic director of Jay-Z and Kanye West's Watch the Throne album, for which he was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Album Cover.

In 2013 he launched his Milan-based fashion brand, Off-White, an extension of his first Pyrex Vision project, which offers collections of clothing for men and women, inspired by the street and counterculture. The launch of his brand is subject to many controversies since he was accused of plagiarism: for his first models, the designer buys a stock of Ralph Lauren rugby shirts and sweatshirts l from the Champion brand and customizes them with his brand logos, which has aroused strong reactions.

Also during this year, he is the subject of a retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago bringing together several of his creations in fields as diverse as fashion, music, design or art. Entitled "Figures of Speech", the exhibition also includes an exclusive pop-up store of its Off-White label. Subsequently, the exhibition was moved to the High Museum of Art in Atlanta.

In June 2019 he opened a bookstore in the 1st arrondissement of Paris distributing free magazines and books written by collaborators or "friends" of the Louis Vuitton brand (of which he is the artistic director Homme). That year, he was among the most influential personalities in the world according to Time and his Off-White brand was recognized as "the most popular in the world" ahead of Gucci or Balenciaga.

Virgil Abloh died on Sunday, November 28, 2021, at the age of 41, from cancer, in Chicago (USA). He died of a heart angiosarcoma, which he had been fighting secretly since 2019. It is the LVMH group that announces the latter's death on social networks.