Virgil Abloh - Designer

[Nocturnal]

The comparisons to Wang are unfounded, as Wang is more a stylist.

Just like Virgil...

 

[helmutnotdead]

Maria Grazia at Dior.
Kim Jones at Dior Homme.
Riccardo Tisci at Burberry.
Phoebe Philo exiting the industry.
Hedi joined Céline.
Kendall Jenner jury of the LVHM Prize.

And now, this untalented guy joins Louis Vuitton Menswear.

It's getting more and more depressing.

I just don't know why I'm still interested on fashion to be honest.

 

[Nocturnal]

Kendall Jenner jury of the LVHM Prize.

toofab.com

 

[MulletProof]

This thread about to go off with the aristocratic fashionistas ...lol..Congrats to big bro ...

Well I for one loved this quick upgrade from not being into the products of the Kardashians/Kanye, to aristocracy. Thanks, sire.

 

[Lola701]

As he is not really an original with a defined aesthetic, if i was him, i would stop copying Raf Simons & Helmut Lang and just COPY THE HELL OUT OF GAULTIER MENSWEAR!
I mean, like literal copy with just modern silhouettes.

Maria Grazia at Dior.
Kim Jones at Dior Homme.
Riccardo Tisci at Burberry.
Phoebe Philo exiting the industry.
Hedi joined Céline.
Kendall Jenner jury of the LVHM Prize.

And now, this untalented guy joins Louis Vuitton Menswear.

It's getting more and more depressing.

I just don't know why I'm still interested on fashion to be honest.

He may not be the best fit for Burberry but Riccardo is a good designer. One of the most talented and gifted of our era. The most annoying thing about him is when he is lazy and relying on obvious streetwear BUT when he wants to be good, he sure deliver!

I also find Jones talented. His 2 last collections for Vuitton weren't my cup of tea but he is good.

I love Hedi but he is limited (as of now).

But i agree about MG and Kendall.
At this point, i don't even care about the LVMH Prize because i don't understand why they are not using the ressources they have in order to refresh some houses.

Virgil got the job because of his personality, the fact that he is quite close with the Arnault and the attraction he got. There was a riot in Rue Cambon just for him...
Virgil has always wanted this so i hope that it will be more like a JW ANDERSON situation than an ALEXANDER WANG one. He has the opportunity to work with the best and he has 3 months to create a desirable collection. It's enough IMO, giving the endless possibilities he has now. I'll wait.

I know the LVMH Prize was created by Delphine Arnault because she actually cares about fashion but i have a hard time to understand their strategy post-winning.

 

[kasper!]

I will stop buying LV from now..This is enough

 

[anlabe32]

Lol, this is going to be so bad.

 

[jeanclaude]

A perfect article by Eugene Rabkin from StyleZeitgeist:

Louis Vuitton’s New Appointment Marks an Important Victory for Marketing Hype Over Design

When two and a half years ago Balenciaga hired the unproven but exciting (at the time) Demna Gvasalia, Alex Fury, the respected fashion critic, wrote that Gvasalia’s appointment marked an important victory for design over marketing hype. And while the jury is still out on that, it is fairly obvious that in yesterday’s appointment of Virgil Abloh to helm the menswear at Louis Vuitton, marketing hype triumphed over design. In the fashion industry Abloh is widely considered to not be a real designer, but a savvy image-maker who has risen to the top through celebrity connections – most notably that of Kanye West – and social media.

Abloh, who has no education in fashion design, began his fashion career by printing Caravaggio paintings onto Champion sweatshirts for his first line, Pyrex Vision, and charging several times over their retail price. These, and his other streetwear items with “PYREX 23” (“23” after Michael Jordan’s jersey number), printed in stark white on black, owed an obvious debt to what Ricardo Tisci was doing at Givenchy. When rappers like Kanye West and ASAP Rocky began wearing them, hype quickly caught on. Capitalizing on that, Alboh went full force into fashion, by creating Off-White, a full-fledged line. But his work at Off-White, which added womenswear to his menswear, has remained largely meritless as fashion design – most of it is simply rehashing of apparel archetypes – jeans, hoodies, tees, denim jackets and so on. The majority of these aren’t even redesigned, but simply covered with a highly visible Off-White logo of wide slanted black and white stripes that resemble a traffic sign. It photographs well, and it telegraphs immediately what you are wearing. It’s irresistible Instagram fodder. And it sells like hotcakes.

As money and fame rolled in, indiscriminate collaborations with everyone from Ikea to Jimmy Choo to Nike followed, further contributing to Abloh’s rise. But the core of his creative career has remained hollow. Abloh represents everything that is spurious about the post-modern, ersatz, marketing-driven culture we live in – photographers instead of painters, DJs instead of musicians, and stylists instead of designers. Not that the former are without merit – they are just easier to fake. As Hussein Chalayan – a fashion designer par excellence – once noted, “I don’t know any other business where a rich man’s wife can employ a team to work for her and declare that she’s a designer with no prior training. It cheapens our industry.” Indeed.

All of this makes the move on Louis Vuitton’s part look incredibly cynical. Of course, it’s also a major business opportunity. As it stands today, Louis Vuitton is both a stodgy purveyor of old-fashioned luxury and a seller of mass luxury goods. It is the largest luxury brand, but its customers are mostly women. And While Kim Jones is a fine designer, Louis Vuitton’s menswear has always been an afterthought, until last year’s collaboration with Supreme. The wildly successful experiment proved to Louis Vuitton that if the company wants to sell menswear, it should go after the elevated streetwear market. Seen in this light Abloh is a perfect choice. That his hiring is completely antithetical to the Louis Vuitton brand clearly does not bother the brand’s executives.

Commenting on the new hire, Michael Burke, Louis Vuitton’s CEO, said, “From the mid-19th century to the 1920s and beyond it [LV] always sought to cater to the new wealthy class, not the old aristocrats.” In what universe?! At best, one could say that Louis Vuitton is an aspirational luxury brand, that the first thing a newly-minted middle class woman will buy is a Louis Vuitton bag, in a clear imitation of those old aristocrats (one does not typically “aspire” to the same social class one is already in.)

The trajectory that Louis Vuitton envisions for its menswear seems pretty clear. Its mighty marketing machine coupled with Abloh’s reputation and his Instagram following promises serious money. Menswear presents a fairly easy target, because it is a uniform-based style of dressing. I can see Abloh producing the same menswear archetypes he churns out now at Off-White, only with a different logo on them. Sadly, that’s what much of men’s fashion has become. The clothes itself are increasingly irrelevant, because they are the same – thus branding matters more and more.

But perhaps what is more important than what hiring Abloh means for Louis Vuitton is this – his appointment is a disservice to fashion at large. Because fashion is a creative industry, there traditionally has been an implicit understanding that brands have a certain duty to creativity, not only to satisfy the critics, but to also maintain a certain cultural cache, even if it meant a slightly smaller figure at the bottom line. Clearly, this is no longer the case. Is there any point left in lamenting the dismal state of contemporary fashion when all its biggest players see are dollar signs?

Full article: https://www.sz-mag.com/news/2018/03...arks-important-victory-marketing-hype-design/

 

[ghostwriter10549]

Well, last Off-White show had A CROWD trying to get in, this is so rare these days, he had in his hands a lot power.

My first reaction to this was grumpy but now, after thinking about some time, I like this ideia. I love when LV goes full comercial and this is what gonna happen here. He probably will try a more intellectual approach but I think that he will be fine.

LV stores will have queue of people wanting to buy his stuff just like in the days of MJ.

 

[StoneSkipper]

Oh boy. I mean, I guess I'll wait to see how things will turn out... but I'm not exactly optimistic.

 

[Fiercification]

Ahaha...did April Fools' come a few days early this year? At any rate, I'll wait and see what his initial collections look like. Will be intriguing to say the least.

 

[Deleted member 130879]

Design is dead. We only have a few houses working with a coherent line of design nowadays. There's no identity anymore, it's just young designers copying/stealing and living of styling hype.

I don't need to wait. I know it will be crap as everything he has done.

 

[MissMagAddict]

source | twitter:virgilabloh

 

[Miss Dalloway]

I heard that not only did Kim put his name forward, but campaigned to get him hired. Are they even friends in real life? Interesting!

 

[YohjiAddict]

That tweet killed my soul...Eugene Rabkin can get so pretentious in some of his articles but that one is so damn spot on...

P.S.: Tim Blanks was so right when he said Chalayan's a bitter old man lol

 

[Benn98]

But perhaps what is more important than what hiring Abloh means for Louis Vuitton is this – his appointment is a disservice to fashion at large. Because fashion is a creative industry, there traditionally has been an implicit understanding that brands have a certain duty to creativity, not only to satisfy the critics, but to also maintain a certain cultural cache, even if it meant a slightly smaller figure at the bottom line. Clearly, this is no longer the case. Is there any point left in lamenting the dismal state of contemporary fashion when all its biggest players see are dollar signs?!

Yes, yes, yes!! Great article, overall.

Lola, I really doubt he'll be able to innovate LV the way Anderson did with Loewe, please.

 

[GERGIN]

Sad times in the fashion industry..

 

[MissMagAddict]

System A/W 2017

source | mydigitalcopy lo-res

 

[tatouejeremie]

source | mydigitalcopy lo-res

god what are those notes

 

[Benn98]

What an eyeroll-inducing read, lol. And of course it would be Rem Koolhaas. Which other star architect, other than maybe Zaha Hadid, is as faffed over by fashion as him?