Virgil Abloh

Virgil Abloh (September 30, 1980 – November 28, 2021) was an American fashion designer and entrepreneur.

Virgil Abloh was born on September 30, 1980, in Rockford, Illinois, to parents from Ghana.

His mother was a seamstress and his father managed a paint company.

From his mother, he learned how to sew.

Abloh was raised in Rockford, where he attended Boylan Catholic High School, graduating in 1998.

He graduated from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 2002 with a Bachelor of Science degree in civil engineering.

He received his Master of Architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) in 2006.

When Abloh was attending IIT, there was a building on campus under construction designed by the architect Rem Koolhaas (who had also worked on runway collections for Prada).

Koolhaas's building helped spark his interest in fashion.

Abloh was further inspired by Crown Hall, designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.

Abloh's master's thesis project involved a design for a Chicago skyscraper, which curved in the direction of Lake Michigan.

While studying architecture, he also designed T-shirts and wrote on fashion and design for a blog, The Brilliance.

Abloh first met musician Kanye West while working on his designs at a Chicago print shop.

A trained architect, Abloh, who also worked in Chicago street fashion, entered the world of international fashion with an internship at Fendi in 2009, alongside American rapper Kanye West.

After getting his architecture degree Abloh interned at Fendi in the same class as rapper Kanye West in 2009.

Placed in the company's Rome, Italy office, the two began a collaborative relationship.

During his work with the rapper and designer, Abloh caught the eye of the Louis Vuitton CEO, Michael Burke.

Later that year, Abloh and West's artistic partner, Don C, launched a retail store, called the RSVP Gallery, located in Chicago.

The store became known for carrying a mixture of fashion apparel, and for its reflection of Abloh's style on his design for the store interior.

A year later, West appointed Abloh the creative director of his creative agency, Donda.

Abloh assumed the role of Creative Director at Donda, West's creative agency in 2010.

In 2011, West asked him to serve as the artistic director for the 2011 Jay-Z/West album Watch the Throne, earning the designer a Grammy nomination.

He began his own line of luxury streetwear clothing, Pyrex Vision, in 2012, and became the chief executive officer of the Milan-based label Off-White, a fashion house he founded in 2013.

In 2012, Abloh designed the cover art for WZRD's self-titled debut.

In 2012, Abloh launched his first company, Pyrex Vision.

He purchased deadstock clothing from Ralph Lauren for $40, screen-printed designs on them and sold them for prices upward of $550.

He closed the company down a year later as he did not intend it to be a commercial enterprise, but an artistic experiment.

Abloh founded his first fashion house and second business overall in 2013 with the high-end streetwear brand Off-White, designing a logo inspired by Ben Kelly.

Based in Milan, Italy, the company was described by Abloh as "the gray area between black and white as the color off-white" to investors and fashion critics.

During the launch of his brand, he received help from the New Guards Group, who also assisted many other designers and brands, such as Palm Angels, Heron Preston, and Marcelo Burlon.

Abloh said his first Off-White collection was inspired by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's floating glass home, Farnsworth House, and presented it with references to the Baroque artist Caravaggio and the early 20th century German design studio The Bauhaus.

The brand lead generated widespread attention for his apparel beginning in Paris, then expanding to China, Japan, and the United States.

The clothing line can be identified through its use of quotation marks, zip-ties, capital letters, and barricade tape.

He launched the company's women's wear line in 2014 and showed the collections at Paris Fashion Week.

His line was selected as a finalist for the LVMH Prize, an industry award, but lost to Marques'Almeida and Jacquemus.

Abloh launched his first concept store for Off-White in Hong Kong in 2014.

Abloh was also the artistic director of Louis Vuitton's menswear collection beginning in 2018, and was given increased creative responsibilities across the LVMH brand in early 2021.

The first African-American to be artistic director at a French luxury fashion house when he joined LVMH in 2018, Abloh was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world that year.

Abloh's design aesthetic which bridged streetwear and luxury clothing was described as transformative by The New York Times.

According to The Wall Street Journal, he reached a level of global fame unusual for a designer, and as an inspirational figure, according to the BBC.