Fashion designer Virgil Abloh quickly rose to become the defining star of Louis Vuitton as a whole. Due to Abloh’s sudden death, the fashion house would need a new creative director, but there is no word of a successor.
Abloh skillfully operated at the intersection of street and high fashion: his clothes and accessories were not too experimental for the average urban youth, but often also met the requirements of high fashion lovers.
Björklund studies the future extensively from the perspective of design. His main job is teaching at the Institute of Design at LAB University of Applied Sciences. The work includes, among other things, supervising the theses of graduating students, so the emerging talents of design are familiar.
Björklund describes Abloh as quite talented both in design and in understanding the social side of fashion.
The Doctrine of Kanye West
Abloh’s breakthrough in fashion came with the stupidly simple Pyrex Vision clothing brand. In interviews, Abloh described Pyrex mainly as an art experiment, where he printed his logo on clothes made by others, such as Ralph Lauren’s flannels. According to Abloh, the idea was to show that \”you can make your own from a product so easily\”.
Overprinted flannels costing hundreds of dollars went down well with the logo-hungry street fashion crowd of the 2010s. Convinced of success, Abloh founded Off-White in Milan in 2012, which continued with the logo-printed line. However, the aim was slightly shifted towards the audiences of the top fashion houses. Rappers and style influencers embraced Off-White, and the masses of consumers followed suit.
In the latter half of the 2010s, young people spent more and more money on fashion, and this did not go unnoticed by the LVMH luxury group, which manages many of Europe’s top brands. Reasonably priced caps, sneakers and hoodies could now be asked for large sums of money.
The group’s management decided to invest in a person who knew how to sell these. In 2018, Virgil Abloh was chosen as the creative director of the men’s line of Louis Vuitton owned by LVMH, accompanied by surprise, party buzz and also criticism.
An American in Paris
Abloh was the first designer of African descent to head Vuitton’s men’s line, and among the first at any old French fashion house ever. In general, American designers were not a familiar sight in the fashion cabinets of the old continent.
Abloh brought bright colors, unusual patterns, experimental materials and a certain kind of street credibility to Vuitton. Especially with his imaginative displays, Abloh made Vuitton interesting to watch, even if the products full of LV monograms were not to his taste.
The success story stopped with a rare angiosarcoma of the heart, which Abloh had been suffering from in secret from the public since 2019. In November 2021, the disease took Abloh’s life. The designer was visibly mourned on social media, and Vuitton organized a grand final show in memory of the star with statues and drone light spectacles.
Fashion in a time of economic and climate crisis
Vuitton has now been without a creative director for the men’s line for a year. How is a trend compass like Abloh replaced, what is sought in the management of LVHM? A new designer is at least stepping into the changing fashion world.
– Fashion is at a turning point. The world is shaken by crises, from climate change to the coronavirus pandemic, war and the weakening of the economy, says Susanna Björklund.
– In tight times, fashion that you can’t see from a kilometer away which brand it is can sell well, Björklund formulates.
Abloh represented a slightly opposite school. He made his career at a time when young people began to spend more and more money on clothes, especially those with logos.
Fashion is fast and new trends spread even faster on social media. For example, with TikTok, \”outfits\ i.e. entities made up of clothes and accessories, have become one of the most common contents on social media. According to a recent research article by Business Of Fashion, which follows the fashion business, clothing has overtaken American youth’s spending on money, for example, music, video games and eating out. So there is money available if the designer knows how to use social media, which Abloh, for example, excelled at.
Björklund states that young people have grown up hooked on the internet. It is the most important area where the customer must be involved, listened to and, based on the feedback, change things at the company level quickly.
– The first thing is responsibility. A large part of the final works of the design institute’s young people are upcycling, i.e. clothes made from reused materials.
Big fashion houses have now woken up to selling, for example, used clothes and reducing the most destructive practices in the industry. This is also partially driven by social media. For example, at the end of the last decade, it was Vuitton that was hit hard when it was revealed that top brands were burning unsold goods in order to preserve the value of their products.
– The change comes not only in the world of thought, but also at the level of legislation itself. For example, with the new waste law coming into force in Finland next year, textiles can no longer be sent to the landfill, but everything must be recycled, Björklund observed.
Responsibly ugly
Responsibility is combined with the aspiration that fashion is for everyone, not just for \”skinny white models\ as Björklund sums it up. The manager of a modern fashion house should know about environmental issues, but also understand identity politics.
– For example, TikTok is good at peer-to-peer marketing. Who does a young person follow when making a purchase decision, an incredible beauty appearing in a fashion house advertisement or a peer who recommends a cleansing milk for a pimple-faced face on the phone screen?
As such, responsibility does not change the basic patterns of the industry. If the garment is sustainably made but ugly, no one cares, Björklund sums up.
Of course, the confrontation in dressing is not on the luxury-probe axis. Today’s style trends, such as normcore, which emphasizes homely classics from basic sneakers to hoodies, and gorpcore, which adores practical technical clothes, are examples that fashion can also develop in a more conventional direction.
– The goal is not always to stand out from the crowd, says Björklund.
Abloh’s successor should therefore at least understand responsibility and relatability. When looking for the right kind of successor, the management of fashion houses can consult general opinion polls.
This is how the heat is measured in relation to the media and audiences. In addition to image, the choice of a fashion line manager is also a matter of pragmatism. Business of Fashion’s article on Vuitton’s leadership selection suggests that a new leader must master at least three aspects to survive in the fashion business.
First of all, you need a vision, a clear plan for the fashion house’s direction. Secondly, you need a hard work ethic when you have to pump out the collections at a steady pace and at the same time impress the CEO and the eye-catchers of the business world.
Thirdly, it would be good for the designer to have a story that he wants to tell with his clothes and accessories. Abloh was a pop artist and cosmopolitan who wanted to pay attention to the simple things, but still promote the benefits of travel and luxury living. In times of inflation and geopolitical tensions, this story may be hard to sell to large audiences.
So when Louis Vuitton finally, probably in the near future, announces its choice for the men’s line, the direction of future design can be judged from the chosen person.
– And the social situation affects dressing: fashion houses have to react to changes, or customers will disappear. This is all about business, says Björklund.