The History of Virgil Abloh | Threaducation

hi everyone welcome to thread education this is the first in a new series of videos where the focus is learning more about fashion i'll be going in depth about the histories of your favorite brands and designers i'll be reviewing fashion shows covering industry news and much more for this first video we'll be looking at the history of virgil abloh this is a good starting point because whether you're completely new to fashion or you've been following fashion for years it's more than likely that you've heard the name before and are familiar with some of his work that being said let's get started this is the history of virgil avlo virgil abla was born and raised in rockford illinois a city just outside of chicago growing up hablo explored many different interests that interceded with the emerging streetwear culture he loved skateboarding he loved music and he loved sports growing up in chicago during michael jordan's prime years with the bulls virgil witnessed firsthand the dawning of sneaker culture as we know it today and as a kid he even sent some sneaker designs to nike but was told that they don't accept submissions virgil was also interested in graffiti in an interview with gq apple's childhood friend chris eaton said that they discovered books like spray can art and bomb the suburbs during middle school and before long they were experimenting with the art form themselves apparently some of virgil's tags included cease 1 and verge graffiti would later make its way into some of virgil's designs so it's interesting to wonder if this was the start of his love for the streetwear aesthetic moving on virgil has said that his parents were supportive of him exploring his passions but that they always emphasized the importance of pursuing an education when he wasn't out skating djing or drawing virgil was attending boylan catholic high school in rockford where he played for the men's soccer team in an interview with heisner bieti habla said the soccer is the sport he played the most growing up that he'd always been fascinated by the sponsored logos on the front of the jerseys as an interesting fun fact in 2018 virgil actually partnered with nike to give the current men's and women's soccer teams at his old high school custom off-white uniforms that's getting a bit ahead of ourselves though because at this point off-white had not yet been created in fact virgil wasn't even pursuing fashion instead after graduating high school in 1998 virgil enrolled in the civil engineering program at the university of wisconsin-madison another school that he would later collaborate with he quickly found that he wasn't thrilled about the prospect of a career in engineering but he still finished his degree in 2002. virgil then went back to school this time to the illinois institute of technology where he pursued a master's degree in architecture the time virgil spent studying architecture had a major impact on his future as a designer and he'll be the first one to tell you that his industrial aesthetic was largely inspired by deconstructivist architects like rem kulhas who happens to be a long-time partner of prada he talked about this in much more depth during a speech he gave at harvard in 2017 and revealed that he and kohas an architect he studied in school have actually started working together on some projects side note i was actually at this harvard lecture in person and this is a picture of me throwing my shoe at virgil but that's a story for another day keep this harvard lecture in mind because we will be coming back to it later but for now just remember that studying architecture had a big impact on who virgil is as a designer today it was during his time at the illinois institute of technology the virgil dove headfirst into streetwear culture despite going to school in chicago virgil began making frequent trips to new york city for the sole purpose of shopping at local stores like a-life and this allowed him to start making connections in the community perhaps the biggest turning point was his discovery of splay splay was a messaging board exclusively for big names in the downtown new york fashion scene and even though everyone could view the site you could only post on it if the site's founder samuel spritzer accepted you if you don't know who samuel spritzer is you've probably still seen some of his work today his company manages the web presence for the likes of supreme kavemp and cause thanks display in his trips to new york virgil was tapped into new york streetwear culture despite still being enrolled in school back in chicago he had purchased the adobe suite to use in his architecture classes but recalls that one of his professors encouraged him to use the program for more than just architecture and that's how he started making some of his earliest t-shirt designs before long virgil decided to start his first streetwear brand now a lot of you are probably thinking through education i already know what you're about to say virgil's first brand was pyrex everybody knows that but that's actually not true technically virgil's first brand was something called fort home virgil says that the first t-shirt he made for ford home used edwardian script because that's the only font his copy of adobe illustrator had at the time and there was also a big x on the back of the shirts is it just me or does that sound a little bit familiar he hosted a few pop-up shops for ford home but it never really grew beyond his circle of friends it did however catch the attention of one very important person virgil sent his designs to be printed at a local t-shirt printing shop called custom kings employees at the shop were really impressed that he had sent in all of his files in the proper format and they offered him a job virgil had only been working at custom kings a short time when don c walked in looking for someone to help him design some t-shirts dancing liked virgil's designs and the two began working together almost immediately this turned out to be a major turning point in virgil's career dawn c saw the potential in the budding designer and set up a meeting between him and his cousin john monopoly who was managing kanye west at the time as the story goes in 2006 virgil skipped his own graduation ceremony to take the meeting with monopoly and shortly afterwards he was introduced to kanye together kanye and virgil began collaborating on album artwork set designs merchandise and whatever other projects they could think of it was the start of a great creative partnership and perhaps more importantly a great friendship working with kanye also helped virgil expand his network in 2007 kanye introduced him to kim jones who had just won the title of menswear designer of the year at the 2006 british fashion awards virgil admired kim's ability to walk the thin line between straight wear and luxury fashion which was something that he himself was trying to do after their introduction virgil slept on kim's couch in london for an entire summer and spent the time learning everything he could about the industry this was the beginning of another friendship that would have a major impact on his career i'll also note briefly that around this time kanye virgil and kim jones were all involved in a label called pastel but i'll go more into depth on that in another video according to virgil one of the first major projects that he completed for kanye was joining him and artist takashi murakami in designing merch for the glow in the dark tour which was the tour for kanye's 2008 album graduation the more that they worked together on projects like this the more virgil and kanye began bonding over their shared love for fashion both of them soon became fixed on the idea of breaking into the world of luxury fashion and that's exactly what they did in 2009 original and kanye had a meeting with louise wilson who was the head of the masters program at the legendary design school of central saint martins in an interview with gq virgil says that they asked wilson to help them learn fashion design the right way but she responded saying you guys are idiots you know more than my students why on earth would you want to go to fashion school taking her advice they forward fashion school and instead saw a practical experience by taking up an internship at fendi it's not exactly clear how they landed the internship but it's fair to assume that kanye was able to pull some strings to make it happen the two have since joked about the internship saying that they didn't do much more than fetch coffee not to mention they only made 500 per month however their time at fendi may have been more impactful than they led on in fact it appears to have been a developmental period for the both of them in a 2018 interview kanye explained we couldn't figure out how to actually make the clothes so we just do it in photoshop and virgil became the fastest photoshop artist that i've ever met in my life he's also previously said that they brought the idea of leather joggers to fendi but were turned down aside from that one very important thing happened during their internship at sandy they caught the attention of michael burick who was ceo at the time burke has since said that they brought a whole new vibe to the studio and were disruptive in the best way and he added that he's been following virgil's journey into fashion ever since without the fendi internship virgil may have never made it onto michael burke's radar and it's a good thing he did because just a few years later michael burke would become chairman and ceo of louis vuitton but we'll get to that in just a bit now in 2009 the same year that they completed their internship at fendi kanye and virgil also made their first big run at paris fashion week even though kanye was already a multi-grammy-winning star and was collaborating with louis vuitton on his own sneaker virgil recalls that they were still treated as outsiders in an interview with w magazine he says we got into about 60 of the shows we were a generation that was interested in fashion and we weren't supposed to be there even though they felt like outsiders they didn't hold back when it came to letting everyone know who they were and that they were there to stay you can see here a now famous photo taken outside of the com de garcon show from left to right we have don c who co-founded rsvp gallery with virgil that same year paz arnold the founder of streetwear brand tisa chris julian the founder of the streetwear boutique fruition and designer who worked on pastel kanye wearing his aforementioned signature louis vuitton sneaker fonsworth bentley a rapper and actor and then finally in the blue montclair puffer we have virgil and look i'm not saying you have to like these fits but just know that at the time this photo got a lot of attention and left a lot of people asking who are these guys and what are they doing at paris fashion week 2009 was a breakout year for virgil and really he was just getting started following paris fashion week virgil took on the role of art director for kanye's 2010 album my beautiful dark twisted fantasy the two of them flew to oahu hawaii where kanye had booked an entire recording studio 24 hours a day for several months as art director virgil was the one who chose george condo to create a series of paintings for the album's cover artwork even though the final version had to be censored so it could be released in stores the time that virgil spent in hawaii also gave him the chance to grow closer to some of kanye's collaborators including the likes of kid cudi rizza nicki minaj and pusha t in an interview with gq pusha t says i met virgil at the my beautiful dark twisted fantasy sessions in hawaii and here's this guy always in the studio and he's pulling every reference under the sun from his computer architecture fashion his laptop was like a library of everything that was aesthetically beautiful and relevant it's important to bring this up because more than anything else art directing this project was virgil's way of ingratiating himself further into the rap community as we'll see virgil's future success in fashion would rely heavily upon support from the rap community so this was an important period in his career in 2010 virgil was officially named the creative director of kanye's creative content company donda which tasked him with many of the same responsibilities he was already handling including things like merchandising and stage design one of his first projects in the new role was directing the artwork for kanye and jay-z's 2011 album watch the throne under virgil's direction the cover artwork was designed by ricardo tishi who was creative director of givenchy at the time in fact virgil and ricardo's work on watch the throne earned them a nomination for best recording package at the 54th annual grammy awards so yes you heard that right virgil does have a grammy nomination virgil's next venture into fashion came somewhat unexpectedly during the watch the throne tour virgil found himself at the lanesboro hotel in london alongside matthew williams herron preston and justin saunders according to a piece that matthew williams wrote for grail the four of them were tired of going out to clubs and parties in london because they didn't like the music being played that was when they were struck with the idea to bring their phones and laptops with them to operate the dj booths themselves they formalized their new dj collective under the name ventril which williams says was inspired by their connection with internet culture and rap music virgil also adopted the name pyrex vision for himself and yes that is a hint of things to come but hold on because we're not quite there yet after playing their first gig in london the ventral collective started making appearances more regularly even though the group started as nothing more than a fun idea everything changed when virgil and heron started printing shirts with ben trill branding characterized by bold graphics the iconic dripping logo and of course an abundance of hashtags the shirts were hard to miss they started circulating pieces among their friend group and before long major celebrities like kanye rihanna and asap rocky were regularly wearing ventral branded merchandise this of course created hype and so the collective started selling a limited number of pieces that select fashion boutiques what had started as a dj collective has semi officially become a streetwear brand or at least everyone treated it that way reflecting on the success of bentrue matthew williams said i think everybody on the internet thought we were taking ventril a lot more seriously than we actually were bentrow was just about getting out and testing new ideas some of these ideas however were controversial such as charging one hundred dollars for these shoelaces they faced a lot of criticism for charging prices that didn't quite match the material quality of the products that was until they flipped the script and started selling ventril at pacsuns across america effectively killing the hype all at once nowadays ventral is often looked back upon as a case study of how a hyped brand can fall apart but to be fair it sort of happened by design in a lecture that virgil gave at columbia in 2017 he reveals that he consciously decided to step away from ventril because he no longer wanted to proliferate what he called bad design even if that's what was selling the most t-shirts at the time all things considered this was an important stage in his career according to don c it's actually the ventral era that transitioned virgil into a public figure nevertheless virgil seemed to anticipate the impermanence of ventril because in 2012 he started working on another project of his own yes i am talking about pyrex vision i'll start by saying that much like ventril pyrex was more of an experiment than a brand virgil has described pyrex saying it was a 10 minute film that i wanted to make and i needed clothing to support this idea of a team with no sport i was very intent on stopping it before it really got started i'll roll the video virgil is talking about now here you can see pyrex's collection titled youth always wins which he debuted in december of 2012. according to virgil the inspiration for the design and name of the brand came from the stigma that people from impoverished areas like his hometown of chicago can only make it out by either selling drugs or playing basketball that's why the name on the jerseys is pyrex a reference to the cookware infamously used for making drugs and the number on the jerseys is 23 a reference to the number michael jordan wore during his legendary run with the chicago bulls speaking of which pyrex was not actually based in chicago instead virgil decided to stake his claim in the heart of streetwear culture by running the brand out of new york in fact if you look closely at the video you might see a few familiar faces from new york's fashion scene modeling for the video we have asap hills asap nast ian connor asat bari nolai jr and asap josh also in the back spray painting the walls is graffiti artist jim joe who would famously go on to design the cover art for drake's 2015 album if you're reading this it's too late in the context of the 2012 new york fashion scene if we want to continue the sports analogy here that's basically a starting lineup full of all-stars now remember pyrex vision was never really meant to be a brand it was really supposed to be another experiment and if i had to title this experiment it would be how to start a streetwear brand i mean seriously virgil mastered this formula with pyrex vision step 1 purchase cheap blanks most of the pieces were either champion blanks or 40 ralph lauren flannels step 2 use simple iconography to make the blanks easily recognizable virgil put pyrex 23 on literally everything and even these little squares let you know it's pyrex step 3 get influential people to wear your clothes most people who started streetwear brand hook their friends up with some pieces well virgil's friends included kanye jay-z and asap rocky so this step might be a little bit harder to replicate step 4 now that your brand has hype sell limited pieces for high prices and by high prices i mean 550 dollars for a screen printed flannel and step five profit that's basically everything you need to start a successful streetwear brand this so-called streetwear formula did draw a lot of criticism and many fashion bloggers attacked pyrex saying that charging hundreds of dollars for screen printed champion blanks was a scam and let's give virgil some credit he wasn't really hiding anything i'll let you draw your own conclusions but let me just say that at its peak pyrex was consistently selling out and i promise you that the people buying it didn't feel like they were being ripped off putting on a pyrex flannel was your way of telling everyone that you were part of this new cool streetwear movement it was a statement piece and that's ultimately worth whatever you're willing to pay for it i'll just finish by showing you one of my favorite pictures from my camera roll this rug designed by jim joe the graffiti artist mentioned earlier is sort of just a fun tongue-in-cheek way of acknowledging the pyrex business model perhaps the craziest thing about pyrex vision is that for all the impact it made it was only around for about a year once pyrex the cookware company became aware of virgil using their name for his brand they threatened him with a lawsuit and he had to shut it all down seemingly never fazed by setbacks fashion designer marcelo berlon recalls virgil telling him you know what the glass company pyrex wants to sue me but i have a project in mind and i'm looking for someone to produce my new idea little did they know it at the time but this idea would change everything this idea was off-white when virgil got the idea for off-white the fashion industry was at the beginning of a transitional period luxury fashion houses were beginning to take notice of streetwear's meteoric rise in popularity according to virgil his aha moment came when nicola jesker presented his autumn winter 2012 collection for balenciaga the collection perfectly blended punk rock streetwear type graphics with cuts proportions and tailoring one might expect of traditional high fashion in his own words virgil said that the collection connected to the street in the same way that a supreme box logo t-shirt did people want that elevated sweatshirt no matter what season it is and at that moment i saw myself in high fashion with pyrex vision coming to an end and with the luxury fashion industry opening up to the streetwear aesthetic virgil saw an opportunity as i mentioned he reached out to marcela berlong for help roland is one of the founders of new guards group an italian company that specializes in luxury fashion production and distribution virgil started talking with the new guards group and before long off-white was officially incorporated as a business with his operations headquartered in milan by basing his new label in milan a city considered to be one of the world's luxury fashion capitals virgil was sending the message that off-white was going to be a true designer brand not just another streetwear brand in 2014 virgil debuted his first official menswear collection for off-white as you can see this first collection is really just an evolution of pyrex diagonal stripes flannels and hoodies similar branding placements there are definitely a lot of similarities but the major difference was quality remember virgil used to screen print on champion shirts and ralph lauren flannels but now partnered with the new guards group this first collection was basically his way of saying what would happen if a luxury fashion manufacturer produced the pyrex collection more than anything though this collection defined the design language that virgil would use in its future collections virgil followed this debut up with his women's fall winter 2014 collection and i don't want to brush over this because i think it's important from the very start virgil made it clear that off white would do both menswear and women's wear given that this was his first time running a luxury label this was an extremely ambitious thing to commit himself to even large labels and fashion houses that have been around for years sometimes struggled to balance both menswear and women's wear and in this case he had never even done women's wear before now you can see the collection here on screen and if you want my honest opinion i think that this women's wear collection actually outshines the menswear collection considerably the collection of course uses familiar design elements like the diagonal stripes but this is the first time that they're used in complement to the piece rather than as the center focus even the way the lookbook is shot is something we haven't previously seen from virgil and if you ask me this is the collection that really marks the beginning of off-white as a luxury label after this virgil continued putting out seasonal collections and he really did step things up even over just the next year to me his spring 2015 women's wear collection is a classic he basically turned a raf simmons reference into a resort collection his fall 2015 menswear collection was unlike anything we had ever seen from his menswear before and his fall 2015 women's wear collection is the first time we see him introducing things like small leather goods and handbags now if you think i'm gushing over virgil's early years at off-white that's fine because i'd say i'm a pretty good company and by good company i mean everyone on this list because these are the names of the panelists that nominated virgil to be one of the finalists for the 2015 lvmh prize for young designers in fact i'd say virgil's in pretty good company too because these were the other finalists on the list even though virgil didn't end up winning the award this was still a pivotal moment in the history of off-white being nominated for an lvmh prize is a huge honor in the industry even if you don't win you get a chance to be in the spotlight and for virgil who was already making a name for himself this helped him legitimize his entrance into the world of high fashion in fact this may have played a part in getting virgil his first runway show at paris fashion week where he presented the spring 2016 women's wear collection let's just take a moment to acknowledge that this guy went from not getting into shows to running the shows seriously though everything came full circle for him and this was just the first of many memorable off-white runway shows with a few collections under his belt or should i say under his industrial belt off-white was solidified as one of the hottest new luxury labels but virgil didn't stop there between 2016 and 2017 he started opening off-white stores he began working on furniture he was djing under the name flat white he reunited with takashi murakami to create an art exhibit for the gagosian the list goes on and somehow on top of all of that virgil was working on one of the biggest collaborations in recent memory and yes of course i am talking about the 10. if you know anything at all about virgil and off-white you probably know about the 10 which is off-white's landmark sneaker collaboration with nike in 2017 nike formally announced that off-white would be reimagining 10 of their classic silhouettes but what you might not know is that this story goes as far back as 2012 before off-white even existed virgil was in los angeles still djing with ben trill and happened to run into fraser cook the senior director of special projects at nike keep in mind that this was during the nike yeezy era so through kanye virgil had actually had some experience working with nike before even though he wasn't a full-fledged designer yet cook took an interest in virgil after their chance encounter and would keep an eye on his work in the years to come fast forward to june of 2016 and virgil is presenting his spring summer 2017 menswear collection for off-white at paris fashion week for this collection virgil did a small collaboration with sportswear company umbro as part of the collab some of the runway models were wearing off-white umbro sneakers fraser cook happened to be at the show that day and when he saw the sneakers he instantly knew that virgil needed to work with nike that was the beginning of their collaboration and almost a year later the 10 would be released first let me say that this was definitely no ordinary collaboration nike is always careful about allowing their collaborators to use their iconic silhouettes and in this case nike live virgil used 10 of their iconic silhouettes not to mention virgil didn't just redo the colorways and add a logo he literally deconstructed and reconstructed the shoes to give them an industrial look during the design process he actually used an x-acto knife to take the shoes apart before rebuilding them in new ways that's how he redesigns shoes like the presto which is literally an inside out air max 90 attached to a presto soul now it goes without saying that this collaboration ended up being extremely popular and if you didn't know about off-white before you definitely did now i just want to take a second to note how cool it is that a kid from chicago who grew up sending sneaker designs to nike and admiring michael jordan ended up getting his own nike collection which michael jordan personally endorsed at the time it would have been fair to say that this was the high point of virgil's career as a designer at least in terms of widespread popularity off-white was arguably the hottest label in fashion virgil was a fashion week regular and he was already getting started on other major collaborations like his one with ikea however if you've learned anything from this story it's that virgil is always working on something bigger and better in early 2018 kim jones announced that he would be leaving his role as creative director of menswear for louis vuitton and when he left everyone had the same question who is going to take his place to answer this question we're going to go back to the harvard lecture i mentioned earlier which took place on october 26th of 2017. now if you listen to the lecture you might notice something interesting virgil mentions that he was rushing to the lecture from the airport because earlier that same day he was in new york city he even says that he was finishing up parts of his slideshow on the plane ride over now virgil's a busy guy so that itself isn't that interesting but what he didn't tell anyone in the audience was that the reason he was in new york that morning was because he was at the lvmh american headquarters signing a contract to be the next menswear director for louis vuitton i bring this up because this was two months before kim jones officially announced that he would be leaving louis vuitton and it was five months before virgil officially announced that he would be taking his place and you're gonna have to excuse me for bragging just a little bit here but i have receipts in my phone predicting that this was going to happen months before it became official because if you were paying attention you probably could have seen this coming kim had already been at louis vuitton for seven years and again we'll talk about this in another video but he has said on multiple occasions that as a designer a lot of his inspiration comes from the label's history and not necessarily from any new references so to me the supreme louis vuitton collection was kind of his way of saying that the future of high fashion is streetwear and it was time for him to move to a new label with a different archive from which he can pull new references and that's exactly what he did by going to dior so if the future of high fashion is streetwear who better to take over his role at louis vuitton than his longtime friend virgil and hey maybe kim was trying to tell us something when he wore the off-white air jordan once to his final spring summer show for louis vuitton just to add to that remember that michael burke who was ceo of fendi during virgil's internship was now the ceo and chairman of louis vuitton michael burke had been following virgil's career in fashion so i have to imagine that between his own personal knowledge and the nod of approval from kim virgil was the obvious choice it's also fitting that as creative director of menswear virgil would be working alongside nicola justgear the creative director of women's wear for louis vuitton whose autumn winter 2012 collection for balenciaga was one of the main inspirations for off-white as we discussed after the announcement that virgil would be joining louis vuitton a lot of people in the fashion industry didn't know what to expect so the pressure for his first collection was extremely high would he pick up where kim jones left off or would it be something entirely new in june of 2018 we got our answer when he presented his spring 2019 menswear collection for louis vuitton the show took place at the palais royale in paris france and as people began taking their seats along the rainbow colored runway it was apparent that they were about to witness an important moment in fashion history the collection itself was definitely a new direction for louis vuitton but that's exactly what virgil was brought in for perhaps the most noticeable design choice was the use of harnesses and holsters which gave the collection just the right amount of that industrial aesthetic that virgil is known for true to the history of louis vuitton the collection also put a spotlight on luggage and accessories some standout pieces included the prism bags the white and red crocodile totes ceramic chain link bag straps and my personal favorite the millionaire sunglasses i'll also point out that the collection followed a sort of wizard of oz theme made obvious by the yellow brick road sweater and an all-over rosebed print featuring a picture of dorothy and you might have noticed that the show starts off with a black and white color palette before transitioning into a much brighter more colorful palette this is supposed to mimic how the movie the wizard of oz starts off in black and white and then transitions into color when dorothy arrives in oz to me this reference was virgil's way of saying we're not in kansas anymore somehow a kid from chicago had found himself halfway across the world presenting his first collection for a legendary fashion house the show ended with the teary-eyed virgil walking onto the runway to roaring applause where he embraced his longtime friend and collaborator kanye just nine years earlier the two of them were in paris fashion week together not feeling like they belonged but knowing that they someday would that day had finally come and all of the emotions came out at that moment it's now been about two years since virgil's appointment at louis vuitton and during that time he has continued putting out critically acclaimed collections running successful campaigns putting together runway shows releasing more collaborations managing off-white and a whole other number of projects some of which i'm sure we don't even know about yet even with everything he's accomplished virgil is still really young and as a fan of his work i'm personally really excited to see what the future holds for him with all that said i'll leave you with this after his appointment at louis vuitton in an interview with gq virgil was asked what's next for him and in response he said i feel like i'm figuring things out but i don't feel accomplished yet i still feel like i'm an intern that's the end of the video for today if you've made it this far thank you for listening like i said at the beginning this is the channel's first video so if you enjoyed it please be sure to like share and subscribe if there are any designers brands or collections you want me to make videos about please let me know in the comments down below in the meantime be sure to connect with me on instagram through education and that's all for now so thank you again and see you next time

Channel: Threaducation

Views: 66,272

Rating: 4.916985 out of 5

Keywords: Virgil Abloh, Virgil, the history of Virgil Abloh, off white, off-white, Louis Vuitton, luxury fashion, fashion house, fashion week, Fendi, fashion internship, runway show, fashion show review, pyrex vision, pyrex, been trill, Kim Jones, nike, yeezy, off white nike, fashion, design, designer, model, modeling, Thread, Threaducation, threaducation the history of, the history of threaducation, murakami, dior, Ian connor, How Kanye's Apprentice Stole His Dream Job

Id: uRGXb3JVjiE

Length: 34min 58sec (2098 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 25 2020