The first great black designer, he was the king of luxury streetwear. American designer Virgil Abloh, artistic director of the Louis Vuitton men's collection and founder of the Off-White label, who was fighting a "private battle" against cancer, died at the age of 41.
"The LVMH group, Maison Louis Vuitton and Off-White have the immense pain of announcing the passing of Virgil Abloh, who was struck this Sunday November 28 by a cancer that he has been fighting for several years," LVMH said on its Twitter account.
The disease had never been made public. Born in 1980 in Chicago in a family of Ghanaian origins, Abloh studied at the University of Wisconsin and graduated in civil engineering, there he met his future colleague and friend Kanye West.
Then a masters in architecture, then he started working in Chicago street fashion, before entering international fashion thanks to an internship at Fendi alongside his rapper friend.
Abloh created his first label in 2012, Pyrex Vision. A year later, Off-White was born, a luxury streetwear brand, which imposed itself with the strength of its graphics before evolving towards more "couture" creations.
In 2015 his brand was one of the finalists of the prestigious LVMH award. From there the rise: LVMH signed an agreement in July with Virgil Abloh who became the majority shareholder of his Off-White brand. In career successful collaborations with Nike, Jimmy Choo and Moncler. King of luxury streetwear, he had established himself in just a few years as one of the coolest designers among a millennial audience. His trademark is a style that reflects the "street" culture, with his sneakers and sweatshirts, but also an easily recognizable logo, made of black and white oblique bands.
He was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2018. "We are all in shock at this terrible news. Virgil was not only a genius designer, a visionary, but also a man with a beautiful soul and great wisdom ", LVMH chief executive Bernard Arnault remarked in a statement.
(Unioneonline / L)