R.I.P. Virgil Abloh. You added whimsy during a difficult time for the planet, and democratized luxury using design as a form of narrative change.

Born in Rockford, Illinois, to parents who had immigrated from Ghana, Abloh was the creative director at Louis Vuitton and became widely known, and globally-heralded for his genre-bending perspectives and belief that design was a language that allowed him to communicate complex ideas to the world.

At his label Off-White, in Milan, and at Louis Vuitton, he completed a lifetime of work in less than a decade – and became known for adding giant Xs and diagonal stripes to clothing, so as to make them unmistakeable across social media. He also added prominent zip ties to shoes.

Vogue Magazine: “Virgil democratized luxury, and redefined it with his Off-White brand.”

But what impressed us the most here at BrandStories—when our friends at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago exhibited his work in 2019— was his use of design as a form of narrative change. He sometimes used quotation marks (and visually-dominant ‘air quotes’) to re-contextualize and question everyday concepts. He designed a paper IKEA bag, for example, and adorned it with the word “Sculpture” and made it clear that creating good art and luxury design didn’t mean it had to be expensive, nor exclusively for white-minded elites.

Throughout his career, he also chose to center the experiences of Black people.

A series of Louis Vuitton varsity jackets are splashed with quotes from Martin Luther King, Jr., along with a patch representing the continent of Africa.

As a maker, Abloh also sought to add whimsy—to burst pretension in his bid to redefine luxury. He realized that today, technology is expanding artistic and creative endeavors by enabling far more people, including those traditionally marginalized and/or underserved, with a variety of tools to express themselves creatively. He took great pride in his ability to share, display and connect with potential audiences and patrons, many who felt culturally or generationally different and were demanding to be better understood.

Here’s a video for Vuitton that he made during the darkest days of COVID and now, as we’ve learned, during his losing battle with cancer. A designer with a purpose, he was globalizing a new context for an industry that will forever be changed by his touch.

—_{Marcia Stepanek}

_{PHOTO: Courtesy Off-White label, with permission.}