The French fashion house will release the tribute to its first Black designer later this month
Virgil Abloh acknowledges the audience at the end of the Off/White Menswear Fall/Winter 2018-2019 show as part of Paris Fashion Week
Virgil Abloh and Rihanna after the Louis Vuitton Menswear Spring/Summer 2019 show as part of Paris Fashion Week
Creative Director Virgil Abloh acknowledges the audience during the Off-White Menswear Spring/Summer 2019 show as part of Paris Fashion Week
Kanye West and Virgil Abloh after the Louis Vuitton Menswear Spring/Summer 2019 show
Derek Blasberg, Bella Hadid, Virgil Abloh and Kendall Jenner attend the YouTube cocktail party during Paris Fashion Wee
Virgil Abloh attends the Ketel One Vodka and The Hole present Other Worlds and The Vibes Experience atDe Nolet For Art Basel at Soho Studios
Virgil Abloh backstage at the GQ Men Of The Year Awards at The Star on November 15, 2017 in Sydney, Australia
Getty Images for GQ Australia
Virgil Abloh performs on stage at the YouTube cocktail party during Paris Fashion Week
Virgil Abloh speaks on stage at the WSJ. Magazine 2018 Innovator Awards Sponsored By Harry Winston, FlexJet & Barneys New York - Inside at MOMA
US fashion designer for Louis Vuitton, Virgil Abloh, attending the Dior Men’s Spring/Summer 2019 fashion show in Paris
Tinie Tempah, Idris Elba and Virgil Abloh attend as Tiffany & Co. partners with British Vogue, Edward Enninful, Steve McQueen, Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell to celebrate fashion and film at the new Annabels
Virgil Abloh attends The 2021 Met Gala Celebrating In America: A Lexicon Of Fashion at Metropolitan Museum of Art
Gigi Hadid and Virgil Abloh attend the CFDA Fashion Awards at the Brooklyn Museum of Art
Virgil Abloh attends the Louis Vuitton and Virgil Abloh London Pop-Up
Virgil Abloh and Bella Hadid attend the Louis Vuitton Parfum Dinner at Fondation Louis Vuitton at Fondation Louis Vuitton
Getty Images for Louis Vuitton
Carine Roitfeld and Virgil Abloh at “Figures of Speech” Exhibition Opens In Doha, Qatar
Getty Images for Qatar Museums
In 2018, Virgil Abloh was appointed as the first Black creative designer of Louis Vuitton. As he walked down the Palais-Royale garden’s rainbow coloured catwalk for his debut show, the star studded audience, which included Kanye West, Bella Hadid, Rihanna, Naomi Campbell, were visibly moved by the historic moment.
His subsequent time helming the fashion house broke barriers and ushered in a new era for luxury fashion, which is now the subject of the new coffee table book, Louis Vuitton Virgil Abloh — the first since his untimely death in November 2021 to cancer.
Written by Abloh’s close collaborator, Anders Christian Madsen, the book is divided into eight chapters, one for each of the eight Virgil-orchestrated Louis Vuitton menswear collection and show, and comprises over 320 images and personal reflections from the creative director’s inner circle, including Nigo, Naomi Campbell, Luka Sabbat, Kendall Jenner and Kid Cudi. It covers everything from his first campaign for the label, to his imaginative three-dimensional show invitations, all of which is interspersed with quotes from Virgil Abloh himself, loving nicknamed “Abloh-isms”
Madsen notes in the press release, “as a Black creative with no formal training in fashion design, no list of established fashion houses on his CV […] Abloh saw himself as an infiltrator in high fashion: a true outsider who would become a groundbreaking figure.”
Virgil Abloh walks the runway during the Louis Vuitton Menswear Spring Summer 2020 show as part of Paris Fashion Week on June 20, 2019
The book will be released mid-September in two collectible covers — one with an image of a kid bounding towards a red Louis Vuitton hot air balloon taken from Louis Vuitton’s spring-summer 2022 spinoff show in Miami. Another sports cartoon artwork by cultural icon Reggieknow, who illustrated the now cult characters for Virgil’s spring-summer 2021 show, which was the first time Louis Vuitton ever collaborated with a Black artist on the runway.
“There’s no limit... life is so short that you can’t waste even a day subscribing to what someone thinks you can do versus knowing what you can do,” Abloh famously said. And this book is certainly a testament to this core belief of his. Don’t miss it.
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