Off-White c / o Virgil Abloh: Brand stylist Kanye West
IN THE WEEKLY RUBRIC "NEW BRAND" Wonderzinepresents young designers and tells where and how you can buy their things. Our hero this week is Virgil Ablo, stylist and art director Kanye West, who launched the brand of street women’s and men’s clothing Off-White c / o Virgil Abloh.
The name of Virgil Ablo today at the hearing. He is one of the most influential people in street fashion: Style.com writes about him, and Virgil’s two-meter figure at the Pitti Uomo exhibition in Florence is surrounded by street-style photographers with the same enthusiasm as if Kanye West himself came to the event. This is understandable: with Kanye, Virgil has worked hand in hand for 10 years and his persona is almost as odious. In addition to West, he advises A $ AP Rocky.
Off-White clothing brand c / o Virgil started as a men’s in 2012 after Virgil’s previous project Pyrex Vision and the slogan "Youth Always Wins". In the Pyrex Vision brand, Virgil combined high and street fashion - to put it simply, he invented and released street things like shorts and undershirts at luxury prices. Pyrex Vision items, inspired by Jordan, were sold in their own store in their Chicago RSVP Gallery at exorbitant prices of $ 550 per shirt, but were bought up instantly. In connection with this, critics perceived Pyrex Vision with hostility and with Off-White were treated at first with similar skepticism - all the more so that in the new brand he decided to promote the same idea. However, today the idea of high fashion plus street fashion is realized by a dozen brands, from Hood By Air to Marcelo Burlon, and critics finally recognize their success and the right to life.
Virgil has a master's degree in architecture, and he adheres to clear lines in clothing design. So, under the brand of Off-White c / o Virgil Ablo creates men's things of neutral colors, which invariably adorn block prints in the form of diagonal stripes. In the Off-White men's collection, Virgil produces windbreakers, hoodies, sweatshirts, knee-highs, boxing shorts, T-shirts that adorn diagonal stripes, as well as mesh and espadrille shirts.
This year, Virgil launched the line of women's clothing Off-White c / o Virgil Abloh, which, unlike men’s, is less striit and more bohemian. In the first collection I Only Smoke When I Drink there are monochrome wide-brimmed hats, velvet, fringe, coat, leather jackets, denim, shoes with heels. By his 33 years, he had worked with Fevdin with Sylvia Venturini Fendi, produced collaborations for Ricardo Tisci, Giuseppe Zanotti, Balmain and the Nick Knight project SHOWstudio and collaborates today with Sky Ferreira, who wears his things on tour and appears in Off-White jacket in clip "I Blame Myself".
The mission of off-white to personify the word "now." Off-White c / o Virgil Abloh - about an independent spirit, about a message and self-identification. After all, today people choose not a brand, but a way of life, which is behind the brand, therefore all brands form their tribes. The stripes on the things from my collections are the message that those who know read. This is not a cult thing, as before, this is a whole social network. Girls who wear off-white are cosmopolitan. We can say that they are close to the "international" style. In the first women's collection, I was repelled by the image of Martha Stewart: if she lived today, what would she wear? Because to do modern things, you need to look back.
Where to buy things off-white c / o Virgil Abloh:
Brand items are sold worldwide in 31 stores, including the RSVP Gallery in Chicago, The Webster in Miami, Selfridges and Colette. You can also buy them online at Ssense.com, while Barneys in New York presents hoodie and Off-White t-shirts c / o Virgil Abloh with signature stripes and prints of Caravaggio paintings.