Louis Vuitton’s Creative Director, Virgil Abloh Dies From Cancer

Virgil Abloh, the Artistic Director of menswear at Louis Vuitton, has died. Virgil was said to have been battling with a rare form of cancer for years before succumbing to it at the age of 41.

Abloh was considered technically a member of Generation X, but his career, and his success tell the story of millennial consumerism. In addition to his role at LV, he was the head of his own line, the streetwear label ,Off-White, which he founded in 2013, and which, during the third quarter of 2018, according to the Lyst Index, which converts sales and “sentiment analysis” into rankings, overtook Gucci as the “hottest” brand in the world.

There are thirty-four Off-White boutiques, few of which resemble conventional stores.

Abloh was a trained Architect and likes to say that he is not a fashion designer but a “maker.”Abloh lectured at the Rhode Island School of Design, at Columbia, and at Harvard, where the audience, inspired by his discussion of design “cheat codes,” threw dozens of shoes at the dais for him to sign.
He was credited to have brought something new to high fashion as well as regarded as menswear’s biggest star.

Virgil Abloh was born in Rockford, Ill., on Sept. 30, 1980, to Nee and Eunice Abloh, Ghanaian immigrants. He grew up immersed in skate culture and hip-hop.

Though he did not formally study fashion — he studied Civil Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and received a master’s degree in Architecture from the Illinois Institute of Technology — his mother was a seamstress, and she taught him the basics of her trade.

He is survived by his wife Shannon Abloh, his children Lowe Abloh and Grey Abloh, his sister Edwina Abloh and his parents.