Virgil Abloh Is Having a "Young-Life Crisis"
“I know kids who are half my age who can kill a brand on a whim, make it uncool if they want to.”
Virgil Abloh might just be permanently jet-lagged. In a new profile for GQ, the OFF-WHITE designer says, “I’m not on any real time zone,” and it shows. The 35-year-old architecture student-turned-creative director-turned-designer-turned-DJ is liable to pop up literally anywhere on the map, be it Paris Fashion Week or a Boiler Room set in the Bronx. Abloh also speaks on the flattening out of fashion—“There was couture. And then there was Yves Saint Laurent. Like, ‘Hey, news flash: No one wears these clothes.’ So here comes ready-to-wear. And now: streetwear — and the blurring of professional lines: “There’s no line between a designer and consumer, I’m also a consumer.”
As far as youth culture goes, Abloh notes a destabilization of fashion’s gatekeeper culture: “I know kids who are half my age who can kill a brand on a whim, make it uncool if they want to.” He also speaks admiringly of the “Tumblr generation,” of those raised with access to admire backlogs of fashion’s elite without necessarily having the financial and/or geographic wherewithal to access these pieces; now, those kids have grown up, and they can afford to purchase, as well as covet, these grails.
You can read more on Abloh’s admiration of Supreme, and his explanation of his brand’s luxury price points in the full piece here.
