His designs may not always be pioneering, but his subversion of the static industry has completely changed fashion.

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After being hired as the art director of Louis Vuitton menswear, Virgil Abloh just stepped out of the door and got a huge commercial blow with a rainbow-colored plastic tote bag or "keepall" (which he called Prism) . In the hours since Mr. Abloh died at the age of 41 from a rare cancer, people have been trying to describe a person whose contribution to the industry goes far beyond any personal design. He is called a kaleidoscope, a Renaissance man, and a dynamic force in the history of fashion. However, looking back at his short tenure at the top of business, it seems clear that the words that best describe Mr. Abloh have been there. . He provided it himself.

Mr. Abloh is a prism, a designer, able to capture various colors and light in the evolving culture, refract them, and then transmit them to the waiting world. Mr. Abloh is hailed as one of the first black designers to lead a European luxury company (Olivier Rousteing started his success in Balmain's top position in 2011), and Mr. Abloh takes this achievement seriously, if not with it In terms of coming status, this in itself is impressive.

"What is diversity?" Mr. Abloh once asked a visitor to Vuitton's Paris headquarters a few hours before his menswear conference.

The answer is everywhere. Since Mr. Abloh joined the brand, Vuitton’s monotonous corporate office on the right bank has been transformed into a place more similar to a public gathering space.

"I hope it all makes sense," he said at the time, echoing what he told reporters a few months before he was formally appointed to the position of Louis Vuitton.

At that time, in June 2017, Mr. Abloh was a guest designer for the summer edition of Pitti Uomo in Florence. Understandably, most designers in this position use this unusual platform — Pitti Uomo is the world's largest menswear trade fair — to hype their brands. However, Mr. Abloh did not promote his Off-White brand, but used his allowance to collaborate with artist Jenny Holzer. The two of them extracted poems from exiles caught in the global immigration crisis and projected them onto the ancient skin. The walls of the Palace of Tuscany.

Two years later, on the afternoon of my visit, in the Vuitton studio, models of various colors tried on models that seemed to meet various gender arrangements. Mr. Abloh’s friends, such as Kid Cudi and others, come from the overlapping fields of hip-hop, skating, art, and design. They crowded around a table full of outrageously expensive accessories that made most of them Everyone is employed.

Mr. Abloh, whose nails were painted gray that day, had just returned to work from what he called a rest and reflection period-a punitive schedule. For many years he had to fly at least once a week-in fact, it may It was because of the cancer that eventually took his life. If anything, he seems more committed than ever to have a broad vision of fashion and the composition of its message.

"I'm here, in this space not just making cool things, because it's a luxury item," Mr. Abloh said.

However, from the very beginning, he created cool "things". In terms of quantity, through regular dripping and minimalist aesthetics, they often differ from the fashion exquisiteness of the designers who dominate the upper reaches of menswear on his way up. Far. Although the work philosophy of pioneering late 20th century designers such as Helmut Lang and Jil Sander is a concise but still sexy subtractive aesthetic, Mr. Abloh usually prefers layering, whether it is the clothing itself or a reference. (In his most recent Vuitton fashion show, the jacket was draped over trousers, the hat was clipped to the hoodie, and the bag was hung around the waist, crossing the body and tied to the back.)

He was particularly free in samples from other designers-that is to say: The Italo Zucchelli cloud print collection for Calvin Klein in 2014 (Drake later wore on tour) appeared again at the Louis Vuitton Fall 2020 fashion show Above, very close to the copy-or unaffected by the invisible quotes. He mixed random, sketched exoskeleton shapes from Rick Owens' toolbox, made a $550 flannel shirt for his cult brand Pyrex Vision, and used Ralph Lauren deadstock with the logo.

As a designer, he is a secretive sentimentalist, influenced by the late 80s and early 90s-whether they are cartoons on Saturday morning; or Michael Jackson in the "horror" era (the series Launched by LVMH in response to the "Leaving Neverland" documentary, which details allegations of sexual abuse against the singer); or the dewy young Princess Diana, around her chiffon and bow period; or reimagined as a Sudanese baby The Statue of Liberty; or the flag of the African continent-he wears it on his sleeve.

Sometimes his show can be as bumpy as the revival family matinee of the Warner Bros. Musical. In the first appearance of the 2018 Louis Vuitton menswear show, Mr. Abloh spread a gradient rainbow carpet on the gravel paving of the Royal Garden in Paris, and then opened the door to guests, including 600 students from local architecture, art and fashion schools . For his Michael Jackson-style performance, he rebuilt a dirty Lower East Side street in a tent in Tuileries Garden. (Guests who smoke marijuana add a touch of realism to Alphabet City.)

During his spring 2020 fashion show, a devastating fire overturned the spire of Notre Dame de Paris and almost destroyed the beloved cathedral. He took over the nearby Place Dauphin and installed a Louis Vuitton bouncy castle, and arranged for the waiter in apron to bring champagne to the invitees sitting at the coffee table on the ancient pebbles, and presented small accessories of the Vuitton brand, such as ashtrays and miniatures of the Eiffel Tower, to the wholeheartedly These souvenirs stuffed the guests into the bag.

"When we were here, I always insisted on the idea of ​​celebrating what happened here," said designer Mr. Abloh. He has been Virgil Abloh all his life. This suburban kid can hardly attribute his good luck and hard work to himself. Already got him.

The inner child, Mr. Abloh, often claims to be his creative North Star. He said that the person he thought of when he sat down to design has never received fashion counseling, but learned sewing from his mother Eunice. No matter how great his life has become, he will regularly return to the Midwest, his wife, two children, and the Ghanaian-American family. In his father’s words, he learned the importance of ownership from there. Nee "A profession like no other."

From the critic's point of view, the most durable distinction between Mr. Abloh's truncated career in the fashion industry may not be the products he participated in—his sneaker collaborations, his fashion collections, or his coveted accessories. People will remember that Mr. Abloh's primary reason is that he facilitated the implementation of structural changes.

Once again, he foresaw this for himself.

"There is a level of work designed by Louis," Mr. Abloh said in an interview with Pharrell Williams and artist KAWS for his OTHERtone podcast in January 2021. As Mr. Abloh saw, his true mission is to "ensure that six black children take over my job."