Virgil Abloh has passed away aged 41
American designer Virgil Abloh died in Chicago on November 28, aged 41, following a more than two-year private battle with a rare cancer, cardiac angiosarcoma.
At the time of his death, Mr Abloh was artistic director of Louis Vuitton’s menswear collections and chief creative officer of his own label, Off-White. He initially rose to prominence as creative director of fellow artistic multi-hyphenate Kanye West’s creative incubator, Donda, and his career trajectory subsequently involved collaborations with Nike, IKEA and Evian.
Mr Abloh had entered into a new arrangement with LVMH only last July, specially designed to enable him to collaborate with the group’s 75 brands across apparel, accessories and beyond. As The New York Times’ fashion director and chief fashion critic, Vanessa Friedman, wrote in her obituary of him, this effectively rendered Mr Abloh “the most powerful Black executive in the most powerful luxury group in the world”.
Born in Rockford, Illinois, to Ghanaian immigrant parents on September 30, 1980, the creative earned his bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2002 and a master’s in architecture from Illinois Institute of Technology in 2006. His mother, a former seamstress, taught him the sewing skills he would later need for his career in fashion.
LVMH chairman and chief executive, Bernard Arnault, commented: “We are all shocked after this terrible news. Virgil was not only a genius designer, a visionary, he was also a man with a beautiful soul and great wisdom. The LVMH family joins me in this moment of great sorrow and we are all thinking of his loved ones after the passing of their husband, their father, their brother or their friend.”
Mr Abloh is survived by his wife and childhood sweetheart, Shannon, plus their two children, Lowe and Grey, as well as his parents and a sister.
Image via LVMH.
