Virgil Abloh – Accomplishments & Legacy

Virgil Abloh was an innovator across many industries. The impact he had during his life continues to affect fashion, art and music since his passing. Abloh was instrumental in reinventing the role of creative director and made strides as a Black man in the fashion industry. 

Raised and educated in Rockford in the ‘80s, Abloh found heavy influence in his future work through his hometown. Though he left briefly to attend the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Abloh returned to earn a master’s degree in architecture from the Illinois Institute of Technology. 

The Institute is known as a “center of modernism,” a style that rejected more traditional, Victorian designs. Modernism was experimental and tested the limits of what was considered to be art. 

Working with Kanye

While in college, Abloh was already getting involved in the fashion industry. Though he studied architecture, Abloh also designed t-shirts and practiced  DJing in his free time. He also formed a friendship with musician Kanye West. Together, Abloh and West interned at Fendi in 2009, where they were able to develop a professional relationship outside of their existing friendship. 

Following the internship, West, who had already released multiple albums, partnered with Abloh and brought him on as a creative director. In 2010, West opened his creative agency, DONDA,where Abloh would play a significant role.

Designer and Creative Director

While working with West, Abloh also had ventures of his own. Abloh founded his own clothing brand Off-White in 2013. The brand serves as a middle ground, bridging the gap between luxury fashion and streetwear. 

Off-White’s website says, “Off-White is defining the grey area between black and white as color.”

The brand has a heavy influence on “identity by design.” This is shown through the style of its products, which Abloh approached as a combination of his personal taste and the modernist approach that influenced his university days. 

Some key details of  Off-White’s designs include arrows much like the brand’s logo, zip ties, diagonal stripes and quotation marks. Though much of the brand is monochromatic, a vibrant yellow stripe is another element that has become synonymous with the brand. 

October 2015 marked the first runway show for Off-White. The show was a collaboration with Levi’s and featured a contemporary take on the classic white T-shirt and jeans. Though the show is not known for featuring what has since become known as brand signatures, it did solidify Abloh and his brand as an up-and-coming name in the fashion industry. 

Off-White continued to grow in popularity and with it, so did Abloh. While working as the creative director at Off-White, Abloh took on a new role at Louis Vuitton as the men’s artistic director. Abloh took the role in 2018 and stayed in it until he passed away in 2021. 

Abloh saw the potential of Louis Vuitton. Though the brand was by no means small when he got there, Abloh grew the potential of what it could be. His innovative designs created a bigger name for luxury menswear within the brand. 

His impact did not go unrecognized. In Chicago, a museum exhibit was created to showcase his work across all disciplines. Titled “Figures of Speech” the exhibit was shown at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago from June 2019 to September 2019.

Involvement in art and music

Virgil Abloh was more than a big deal in the art and music industry. Firstly, Abloh was the visionary and designer for some of the most iconic album covers of the 2010s, including the artwork for the cover of Watch the Throne, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon. When he wasn’t designing, he was known to DJ at  music venues and to play unreleased songs by artists like Drake during his runway shows. 

When he entered the arts world, Abloh challenged the idea of what an artist looks like. He used his background in architecture and engineering to create furniture and sculptures. He worked with well-known artists such as Takashi Murakami and Jenny Holzer. By bringing elements like graffiti and skate culture into luxury spaces, he opened doors for a new generation of Black creators to be seen as legitimate artists. 

His awards, honors and overall legacy

Overall, Abloh was a creative who changed the fashion and art we see today. Over the course of his career, he won several awards, including the International Designer of the Year at the GQ Men of the Year Awards in and the Urban Luxe Brand Award for Off-White in 2017. In 2018, Time magazine named him as one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

Beyond his awards, Virgil’s real legacy is the doors he opened for other creatives. He started the Post-Modern Scholarship Fund to give young Black students the money and mentorship they need to succeed in the fashion industry. He often said that everything he did was for the “17-year-old version of himself,” proving that someone from a small town could reach the very top of the creative world. Even after his passing in 2021, his 3% rule, the idea that you only need to change a design by 3% to make it into something new, continues to inspire young designers and creatives to dream big.

He went from being an outsider to leading one of the biggest fashion houses in the world. He proved that streetwear wasn’t just a trend and showed the world that it was an influential style rooted in Black culture. As we continue to celebrate Black History Month, we cannot forget to acknowledge Abloh’s accomplishments, as he contributed to what Black excellence looks like today. He broke down many doors and left them open to make sure his success served as a blueprint for the young creatives coming up behind him.

Even today, his influence is everywhere. His Post-Modern Scholarship Fund still supports dozens of Black students every year and his design philosophy continues to show up on runways and modern products alike. Virgil taught many that they don’t need anyone’s permission to be great. He proved that with a little audacity and a unique perspective, you can set the gold standard yourself.