"Virgil Abloh’s latest album cover design went up in smoke faster than it takes to Google ‘Pop Smoke.’ Incidentally, that’s exactly how Abloh sourced the key art for the rapper’s posthumous album—using the very first result of a Google Image search. The uproar over Virgil’s design prompted us to take a deeper look at Abloh’s body of work. Sure, his sneakers and brand collaborations sell out in seconds, but he’s not immune to criticism that his designs cost too much and offer too little. So is Virgil Abloh inspired, or does he phone it in? Decide for yourself."
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Kid Cudi’s 2012 record WZRD mashed up cloud-filled type with varsity letters for a cover that showed Abloh had a street-wise finger on the pulse of youth culture at large—not just the style bloggers and art school drop-outs. “No matter if he was working with Kanye or doing his own thing,” Cudi told Complex, “he’s always been ahead of the curve.”
In 2012, Abloh tweeted: “Design is the freshest scam.
Quote me on that one.” And fans awaiting rapper Pop Smoke’s posthumous record felt scammed, indeed. After Virgil released his notably underthought cover for Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon—which used the very first Google searched image—fans spoke up. 50 Cent tweeted his disappointment and ordered a new one, this time from artist Ryder Ripps, who accused Abloh (in a since-deleted IG post) of more than mere laziness: “This man took the entire chrome rose concept from me… So sad that someone would care this little about art, design and the memory of a human who was so loved to wrap his name up in lies and theft.”
Abloh’s collaboration with Nike for “The Ten” produced some of the most celebrated (and expensive) sneakers of the decade. His Off-White x Air Jordan 1 ‘Chicago’ was voted the best sneaker of 2017 by the readers of HighSnobiety, and a pair still regularly sells for over $5,000 today.
Could you imagine camping out in a parking lot for a piece of IKEA furniture? Hypebeasts around the globe did to get their hands on the Abloh x Ikea collab MARKERAD (“marked” in Swedish). When the line dropped last November, social media videos from IKEAs everywhere—Tokyo and Switzerland, Brooklyn and London—showed frenzied shoppers grabbing Abloh pieces as quickly as they could. As for the intent behind the designs? Take it from the designer himself: “In the same way you might hang a piece of art work on your wall, art can bleed into objects like a chair, table or rug. That was my initial problem to solve when creating this collection together with IKEA.”
MARKERAD’s ordinary chair (save for the red doorstop under one leg) raised eyebrows for a few reasons—Abloh and IKEA’s Henrik Most wanted to elevate the chair into an “art object,” something more than just a typical chair. But, as Diet Prada points out, that typical chair is actually, “an icon of mid-century design by Paul McCobb for his Planner Group series… among the best selling contemporary furniture lines of the 1950s.” The account continued: “We all get your approach by now, but it would actually be much more interesting to know the sources of your ‘inspiration’...especially if they’re this iconic.”
Not everyone was excited to see Abloh’s brand of design at a fashion house with the legacy of LV. “Expect the same boring, easily-digestible menswear archetypes Abloh has been churning out at Off-White, only with Louis Vuitton logo on them; and, obviously, a slew of collaborations,” wrote StyleZeitgeist EIC Eugene Rabkin. “Abloh’s hiring is a disservice to fashion at large, and will only contribute to the dismal state of contemporary fashion. Here is the thing: fashion is a creative industry, and a certain duty to creativity has always been implicit into the behavior of its players. Clearly, Louis Vuitton executives think this is no longer the case, and that the only duty they have is to their bottom line.”
In his first solo show in a gallery dedicated to contemporary design, Abloh brilliantly channeled mid-century Brutalist design in this furniture concept exhibition. He breathed life into drab, monolithic slabs of concrete with colorful graffiti. The art is meant to evoke “street culture,” according to the designer, the designs “a reflection of our generation.”
Concrete… furniture. Concrete furniture? The words just don’t go together, but Virgil tried it anyway with this Parisian gallery exhibition. Many street art aficionados didn’t appreciate Virgil’s attempts at graffiti, lamenting his imprecise lines and overall inexperience with an art form he doesn’t take seriously. All in all, it’s probably best that this line was limited to a gallery exhibition, and was never actually sold.
When Abloh was named the artistic director at Louis Vuitton, he became the company’s first Black artistic director, and one of the few to ever lead a major French fashion house. Compared to predecessors like KIM JONES, Abloh brought a different set of talents to the table. “Abloh is not a design genius but he is a smart communicator,” wrote Business of Fashion’s Angelo Flaccavento. “He is not the most cultured of designers but he can talk the system into believing so. Most of all, he can dish out easy products with a very cool aura. What’s not to love?”
Album Covers
Off-White
IKEA
Louis Vuitton
Efflorescence
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“Design is the freshest scam. Quote me on that one.”
“All I do all day is think of ideas and implement them. That's an industry, you know. I'm trying to make art on a commercial scale.”
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Diet Prada, an Instagram account that calls out copycat design, has bones to pick with Abloh. In this post, the account claims Virgil plagiarized a design from Italian graphic designer AG Fronzoni,from a poster housed at the Triennale di Milano, a museum 15 minutes from Off-White’s Milan HQ.
"Collaboration is not a punchline... I only collaborate with the best in each category."
"In my case, everything starts from Marcel Duchamp and the new expressive possibilities he gave us with his ready-mades. I transferred his artistic language into today's world, choosing, for example, to use pedestrian-crossing stripes as a symbol."
Various Artists, 2010-present
Founder, 2012-present
MARKERAD collaboration with Off-White, 2019
Artistic Director of Men’s Wear, 2018-present
Furniture exhibition for Galerie Kreo in Paris, 2020
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text by tom devoto and design by jeremiah mcnair
Abloh on Design
Abloh on
Ignoring Category
Abloh on Collaboration
Abloh on
Marcel Duchamp
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