Virgil Abloh Speaks With Pharrell on 'OTHERtone' Podcast About Paving the Way At Louis Vuitton
KAWS, Fam-Lay and Scott Vener join in on the conversation about leaving legacies.
The OTHERtone team, consisting of Pharrell Williams, Fam-Lay and Scott Vener, kicks off the new year joining forces with Louis Vuitton‘s Creative Director, Virgil Abloh, and famed contemporary artist, KAWS for their first podcast of the year.
The conversation starts off with a walk down memory lane where the artists discuss their first encounters with one another, dating back to Pharrell and KAWS meeting in Japan in 2004, to unforgettable events such as Pharrell’s 40th birthday. Vener steers the conversation towards their present day accomplishments, allowing the audience to learn more about what drives these three artists. Virgil and Pharrell discuss their disdain for looking back and do not see the past as a way to fuel their creativity. KAWS on the other hand, is more accepting of his past and even has multiple renditions of all his art pieces, citing the importance of reaching back into his archives.
When asked what it was meant to leave a legacy, Abloh spoke of the importance of his tenure at Louis Vuitton, as not just a profession, but as a role model to a younger generation of artists. Abloh answers, “To me, there’s one level of the work that’s designing at Louis, but my real job is to make sure that there’s, like, six young Black kids that take my job after me. For me, it’s not just to run around and make cool stuff. None of that really feeds my ego. What I would be more impressed by is the next candidate for a house that gets hired as the next head designer has this, like, multidisciplinary background and comes from, you know, not a fashion school and thinks in a different dimension and him get a shot.” Abloh is adamant in ensuring that the legacy does not stop with him and that by paving the way as an unconventional head designer he hopes to “open the door” to many more individuals in the future.
Pharrell chimes in, praising Abloh for understanding and recognizing the greater picture, and that there is a bigger goal ahead of “holding open the door” as opposed to some, who have reached a high level of success and “superglue the door behind them shut,” after having gone through it. Pharrell said, “I love what I’m doing every day, and am way more driven to do this goodwill and get out here and be supportive of these kids, this Black ambition, those are the vehicles that I am really driven by”. The conversation ends with a discussion surrounding the ever-changing generational definition of progressiveness.
Watch the excerpt from the podcast above and check out the full episode on Apple Podcasts.
In case you missed it, HUMAN MADE unveils its SS21 collection.
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