Virgil Abloh. Nike. ICONS

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They don’t all love it. Many of them are lukewarm. Many of them openly hate it! Many say it’s “aesthetically good stuff” but that they can’t get behind the “disingenuous” message of the brand. At the same time, Abloh worked on a master’s degree in architecture, which he received from the Illinois Institute of Technology in 2006. (This should demonstrate two of his more notable qualities, which are that he is smart and has seemingly boundless energy.) This marriage of wealth and accessibility is a cornerstone of Abloh’s creative pursuits and his business, and he discussed his Louis Vuitton appointment with CNBC earlier this month, saying, “My baseline consumer can sometimes be 12 years old, and, you know, that is an incredible task, but I like the challenge of translating a brand that could be 100 years old to someone who’s 12. I specialize in that.” Virgil and Kendall Jenner at the Met Gala. Noam Galai/Getty Images It’s rare that the question “what’s the deal?” feels fair or interesting, but, uh, what’s the deal? Off-White started with a brush — or prolonged embrace — with celebrity Not that this means Abloh’s abandonment of where he came from as a designer—or of who he’s bringing with him. His dedication to the aesthetics of architecture and product design were simultaneously manifested in a color palette inspired by Dieter Rams’s Braun products—and in the tools cleverly embedded in accessories: aluminum keys for heels, a single nail stabbed through a puffy leather bag.The show ended with models and Abloh applauding and dancing with MIA and her incredible troupe of women dancers—the feeling of uplift and community spirit palpably radiating from the stage.

Three months later, Abloh debuted a Nike collection designed specifically for Serena Williams, and here is an incomplete list of the other collaborations he completed and sold in the same 12 months: Champion, Le Bon Marche, Selfridges, SSENSE, KM20, TheDoubleF, Gore-Tex, Browns, Timberland, Burton, Jimmy Choo, Chrome Hearts, Vivendii, Rimowa, Hirshleifers, Ikea, Kith, Equinox, A-Cold-Wall, Burton, Grog, and Sunglass Hut. Abloh is valuable to them because he sits at the intersection of art and commerce and popular culture: At the Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills this fall, you could go see 35 sculptures created in collaboration by Abloh and Japanese fine artist Takashi Murakami. Before the exhibit closed, Drake bought one of them. During a lecture at Columbia University last February, Abloh compared his cover art for Kanye West’s Yeezus to the Coca-Cola can, saying, “Being able to brand content that shapes a generation is not a small thing.”Away from fashion week, and Abloh’s work with Nike also contributed to the transformation of the sneaker landscape. Originally teaming up with the sportswear giant in 2017 for a remixed, red-plastic-tagged reimagining of Nike’s most recognisable styles, “The Ten” collection became one of the biggest collaborative collections in sneaker history. Made up of reworked Air Jordans, VaporMaxes, and Blazers, the capsule was certainly one of the most hyped, and helped cement the sneaker as a legitimate resident of the realms of high fashion and art.

When it comes down to it, Virgil Abloh’s Off-White show was all elevation, exhilaration, and education. Orchestrated by fashion’s master of simultaneous, multi-channelling action, there was much going on in all directions—not for nothing did he name it “Laboratory of Fun.” Let’s start with the exhilaration, though: As the effective opener to the first IRL Paris haute couture season since the pandemic hit, it was joyful reunion, a fantastic repurposing of the ritual of the catwalk as a measure of change, and a brilliant performance by MIA, all rolled into one. Or the translucent Off White Converse high-tops, reviewed by renowned YouTube weirdo Brad Hall as, “The right foot says ‘left,’ the left foot says ‘right,’ it might totally reprogram my brain, not sure I’m ready for that.” I, for one, love this absolutely useless floor-length, neon-yellow tutu, which Beyoncé wore one time. Because it’s so simple and approachable, a lot of streetwear kids may think it’s deeper than it really is” Alex Castro, an illustrator at The Verge (and of this article!) and a notably cool person, is my last best hope to understand the brand’s dominance, since even the hypebeasts are capable of openly questioning it. “All of the power of Off-White is in the quotation marks,” he says. Then he details a very complicated emotional process, reacting to a rug that Abloh designed that says “Keep Off” on it: The late Virgil Abloh was a groundbreaking design visionary and his innovation, energy and spirit live on in his accessory collections today. Our curated selection contains several of the label's original calling cards, including the diagonal stripe and distinctive arrows that are synonymous with the brand.

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For a collaboration with Hiroshi Fujiwara, Abloh designed a money clip that looks like a credit card. “Don’t let Zara and Uniqlo educate you on the price of a garment because that’s not fashion,” he once said. “That’s like McDonald’s. Your health is tied to that — a 99-cent nugget.” He has also collaborated with McDonald’s. Virgil and Rihanna in Paris. Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images Off-White benefits from high fashion’s desperation to regain youth appeal Everything in quotes,” as in, “everything is ironic and also the main recognizable design element on the clothes is chunky quotation marks” Off-White is the hottest brand in the world, according to the quarterly ranking released by the fashion and e-commerce platform Lyst.