PARIS: Virgil Abloh paid tribute to his friend and longtime collaborator Kanye West as the US designer took star billing as Paris men’s fashion week began Tuesday.
Relations between the pair have been tested since Abloh was named head of menswear at Louis Vuitton in March, with the rapper saying it was “hurtful” to lose his muse and erstwhile artistic director.
West has made no secret of his own ambitions to lead a major luxury brand as a designer, and revealed last month that he had also once been in talks with Louis Vuitton’s owner, French fashion magnate Bernard Arnault.
Abloh — the son of Ghanaian immigrants — will show his own Off-White label in Paris Wednesday before making his debut bow with the world’s biggest luxury brand on Thursday.
As he put the finishing touches to his collections he posted a photo of Kanye West to his 2.3 million Instagram followers with legend, “The architect of it all.”
West’s wife Kim Kardashian responded with emojis of a heart and two fires to signal her approval. The rapper — who has his own Yeezy line for Adidas — remained silent.
But he told US radio star Charlamagne tha God in a wide-ranging interview last month that there were no hard feelings.
“These things are hurtful when you are working with a talent like... Virgil and somebody comes through and says ‘Bam! I am going to take Virgil.’
“There is some validation in that someone that I came up with is now the head (of menswear) of Louis Vuitton,” West added.
Abloh, 38, is only the second black man to rise to the top of a big Paris fashion house, with French designer Olivier Rousteing responsible for both Balmain’s men and women’s lines.
As well as his nod to his former employer, Abloh dropped hints on social media that he was about to give the aristocratic Vuitton label a strong dose of black empowerment and streetwear style.
Vuitton’s previous designer, Briton Kim Jones — who makes his own debut for Dior Homme on Saturday — often referenced British colonial and safari chic in his clothes.
Abloh grew up in Illinois where his seamstress mother taught him her trade as he studied engineering and later architecture. He has made it clear his clothes will be much more street.
He posted films on Instagram of cotton plants and ceramic neck chains, in what could be seen as references to slavery, as well as a Louis Vuitton record box inspired by hip-hop pioneer Grandmaster Flash, “where you can put your coat in while DJing, shielding it from smoky clubs and spilled drinks.”
Abloh had worked hand in glove with West for more than 15 years. They designed clothes together on Photoshop and were $500-a-month interns under Karl Lagerfeld at Fendi in Rome in 2009 even though the rapper already had a string of Grammy awards under his belt.
West said that he only found out about Abloh taking over at Vuitton as the appointment was announced in March. “He (Abloh) made the call two minutes before it hit the Internet... He had told me he was looking at Versace too... but he knew he was going to Louis Vuitton,” he added.
West admitted days later in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter that the news had weighed on him. “It’s not bad or good,” he said.
Abloh has built up a celebrity following at Off-White with high-profile collaborations with Nike, Jimmy Choo and Moncler. Such has been the buzz that fashionistas jostled each other to get into his show in Paris last March.
Not everyone, however, is sold on streetwear’s inexorable rise. New York Times critic Guy Trebay said a “lot of what turns up on the runways lately looks less designed than crowdsourced.”
The young German and Swedish brands CMMN SWDN and Gmbh kicked fashion week off on Tuesday evening after a dance show by choreographer Mathilde Monnier inspired by shoemaker J.M. Weston.
French label Pigalle also tried to rethink the catwalk by presenting its new collection during an hour-long music and dance show at one of the French capital’s most prestigious concert halls.
No hard feelings: Paris fashion star Abloh reaches out to Kanye West
No hard feelings: Paris fashion star Abloh reaches out to Kanye West
- Abloh will show his own Off-White label in Paris Wednesday before making his debut bow with the world’s biggest luxury brand on Thursday
- Abloh grew up in Illinois where his seamstress mother taught him her trade as he studied engineering and later architecture. He has made it clear his clothes will be much more street
Sheikha Al-Mayassa talks cultural patronage at Art Basel Qatar Conversations panel
DOHA: Cultural leaders at the inaugural edition of Art Basel Qatar in Doha have discussed how patronage is reshaping art ecosystems, with Qatar’s own long-term cultural vision at the center.
The opening panel, “Leaders of Change: How is patronage shaping new art ecosystems?” brought together Sheikha Al-Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, chair of Qatar Museums, and Maja Hoffmann, founder and president of the Luma Foundation, in a discussion moderated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, artistic director of the Serpentine Galleries in London. The talk formed part of the Art Basel Conversations x Qatar Creates Talks program, coinciding with the debut of Art Basel Qatar which runs in Doha until Feb. 8.
Sheikha Al-Thani framed Qatar’s cultural project as a strategic, long-term endeavor anchored in national development. “Qatar has a national vision called 2030 where culture was one of the main pillars for socioeconomic development and human development,” she said. “We have always invested in culture as a means of human development.”
That vision, she explained, underpins the decision to welcome a major international fair like Art Basel to Doha after turning away many previous proposals.
“For the longest time, I can’t tell you how many art fairs came to us wanting to be here, and we never felt it was the right time,” she said. “However, this is an important year for us and we felt, with the surplus of talent and the growing gallery scene we had here, that it was time to bring industry to talent, because that’s how we will spur the economic diversification from hydrocarbon to a knowledge-based society.”
She was also keen to stress that Art Basel Qatar was not conceived as a conventional marketplace.
“This is not your typical art fair … It’s a humane art fair where engagement is more important than transaction, discourse more important than division, and curiosity more important than conviction,” she added.
That ethos extends to the fair’s artistic leadership. Al-Thani described how the decision to have an artist — Wael Shawky — serve as artistic director emerged collaboratively with Art Basel’s team.
“He’s a global artist who’s now become a very local artist, very invested in our local art scene. And really, I think that’s the beauty of partnerships … There is a safe space for us to critique each other, support each other, and really brainstorm all the possibilities … and then come to a consensus of what would make sense for us,” she said.
Collecting art, she added, has long been embedded in Qatari society: “My grandmother is almost 100 years old. She was collecting in the 60s when Qatar was a very poor country. It’s in our DNA … always with this notion of investing in knowledge and human development.”
Today, that impulse translates into comprehensive, multi-disciplinary collections: “We are both collecting historical objects, contemporary objects, modern objects, architecture, archival material, anything that we feel is relevant to us and the evolution of this nation towards a knowledge-based economy.”
Looking ahead, Al-Thani outlined a new cultural triangle in Doha — the National Museum of Qatar, the Museum of Islamic Art and the forthcoming Art Mill Museum — as engines for both economic diversification and intellectual life.
“That ecosystem will enhance the economic growth and diversification, but also the knowledge that’s available, because the diversity in the collections between these three institutions will no doubt inspire young people, amateurs, entrepreneurs to think outside the box and inform their next business,” she said.
The panel closed with a focus on the future of large-scale exhibitions with Rubaiya, Qatar’s new quadrennial, timed to coincide with the anniversary of the 2022 World Cup.
“Every four years in memory of the opening of the World Cup, we will open the quadrennial. This year, the theme is ‘Unruly Waters.’ At the center of the theme is Qatar’s trading route to the Silk Road,” explained Al-Thani.
“It’s important for us to trace our past and claim it and share it to the rest of the world, but also show the connectivity that Qatar had historically and the important role it has been playing in diplomacy.”
