Virgil Abloh: How a Ghanaian-American designer changed Paris fashion for ever

The fashion world has lost a driving force with the news that Louis Vuitton and Off-White designer Virgil Abloh has died aged 41. The African-American talent was privately suffering from a rare cancer, cardiac angiosarcoma, it has been revealed in the wake of his death.

“We are devastated to announce the passing of our beloved Virgil Abloh,” a post on his Instagram account read.

“Through it all, his work ethic, infinite curiosity, and optimism never wavered. Virgil was driven by his dedication to his craft and to his mission to open doors for others and create pathways for greater equality in art and design. He often said, ‘Everything I do is for the 17-year-old version of myself,’ believing deeply in the power of art to inspire future generations.”

A look for spring/summer 2022, Louis Vuitton menswear, by Virgil Abloh. Photo: Louis Vuitton

Who was Virgil Abloh?

Born in 1980 in Rockford, Illinois, Abloh held degrees in civil engineering and architecture, but didn't start designing clothes until 2012.

His first work, a printed take on a Ralph Lauren rugby top, showed his desire to combine art and fashion, and in 2013 he founded his own label, Off-White. As an African-American, the name was a nod to the bias felt by people of colour.

Characterised by a subversive outlook, his work for the label often had words written on pieces, or were finished with cable ties. He had "Air" written on Nike Air trainers, for example, and he once put an image of the Mona Lisa on a T-shirt, drawing accusations of infringing trademark.

Regardless of the controversy, Abloh won a devoted following for his work, which straddled streetwear and high-end, and in 2018, he was appointed as the menswear designer for French maison Louis Vuitton, making him the first person of colour to hold the position. That same year, he was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

Abloh was also long-time creative director for Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, as the pair served fashion internships together at Fendi. As the news broke of Abloh’s death, Ye dedicated his Sunday Service to his friend. A choir sang Adele's song Easy On Me, which was streamed live on dondalive.com.

Abloh designed the album covers for Ye’s and Jay-Z’s joint album Watch the Throne, as well as Ye’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.

A look for autumn/winter 2021, Louis Vuitton menswear, by Virgil Abloh. Photo: Louis Vuitton

Through Off-White, Abloh collaborated with companies as diverse as Ikea, Perrier and Mercedes-Benz, deliberately blurring the lines between fashion and design. Taking inspiration from almost anywhere, Abloh frequently faced criticism for being too literal, yet a recurring theme at Off-White was tongue-in-cheek critique of mindless consumerism.

At Louis Vuitton, meanwhile, he was able to flex his designer muscles, using the skill of the house to execute some truly dazzling work that questioned the rigid lines of menswear. He introduced oversized layers, often worn with sharply tailored jackets, and dressed his models in durags and trilby hats. He put models in skirts, and added pleated panels to shorts and trousers. Waists became defined with tight belts, and shoulders took on exaggerated width through padding.

Skilled at grabbing headlines, Abloh knew that a bag made to look like a plane, for example, would guarantee worldwide coverage, yet he was still a clever and subtle designer who brought streetwear culture to the hallowed halls of high fashion.

Virgil Abloh on the red carpet at the Met Gala on September 13, 2021. EPA

Under his control, Louis Vuitton embraced a wider, more diverse community, as Abloh put models of colour front and centre of his work, in a shift for the French house. At the height of the pandemic, he presented his collections as filmed tableaux with an all-black cast, with dancers to set the tone.

His work was daring, yet beautiful, and always underpinned by personal experience and intensive research. For spring 2022, for example, his collection for Louis Vuitton referenced what he regarded as the ongoing theft of black culture, with the clothes accompanied by some 40 pages of show notes, setting out his thoughts.

British Vogue editor Edward Enninful described Abloh as “a giant among men".

“Virgil Abloh changed the fashion industry. Famously prolific, he always worked for a greater cause than his own illustrious career: to open the door to art and fashion for future generations, so that they – unlike himself – would grow up in a creative world with people to mirror themselves in."

Bernard Arnault, chief executive of LVMH, owner of Off-White and Louis Vuitton, said: “Virgil was not only a genius designer – a visionary – he was also a man with a beautiful soul and a great wisdom.”

Conflict, drought, famine

Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.

Band Aid

Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.

Sanju

Produced: Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Rajkumar Hirani

Director: Rajkumar Hirani

Cast: Ranbir Kapoor, Vicky Kaushal, Paresh Rawal, Anushka Sharma, Manish’s Koirala, Dia Mirza, Sonam Kapoor, Jim Sarbh, Boman Irani

Rating: 3.5 stars

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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.

Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.

“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.

“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.

Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.

From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.

Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.

BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.

Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.

Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.

“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.

“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.

“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”

The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”

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GIANT REVIEW

Starring: Amir El-Masry, Pierce Brosnan

Director: Athale

Rating: 4/5

Rajasthan Royals 153-5 (17.5 ov)
Delhi Daredevils 60-4 (6 ov)

Rajasthan won by 10 runs (D/L method)

UAE FIXTURES

October 18 – 7.30pm, UAE v Oman, Zayed Cricket Stadium, Abu Dhabi
October 19 – 7.30pm, UAE v Ireland, Zayed Cricket Stadium, Abu Dhabi
October 21 – 2.10pm, UAE v Hong Kong, Zayed Cricket Stadium, Abu Dhabi
October 22 – 2.10pm, UAE v Jersey, Zayed Cricket Stadium, Abu Dhabi
October 24 – 10am, UAE v Nigeria, Abu Dhabi Cricket Oval 1
October 27 – 7.30pm, UAE v Canada, Zayed Cricket Stadium, Abu Dhabi

October 29 – 2.10pm, Playoff 1 – A2 v B3; 7.30pm, Playoff 2 – A3 v B2, at Dubai International Stadium.
October 30 – 2.10pm, Playoff 3 – A4 v Loser of Play-off 1; 7.30pm, Playoff 4 – B4 v Loser of Play-off 2 at Dubai International Stadium

November 1 – 2.10pm, Semifinal 1 – B1 v Winner of Play-off 1; 7.30pm, Semifinal 2 – A1 v Winner of Play-off 2 at Dubai International Stadium
November 2 – 2.10pm, Third place Playoff – B1 v Winner of Play-off 1; 7.30pm, Final, at Dubai International Stadium

Nepotism is the name of the game

Salman Khan’s father, Salim Khan, is one of Bollywood’s most legendary screenwriters. Through his partnership with co-writer Javed Akhtar, Salim is credited with having paved the path for the Indian film industry’s blockbuster format in the 1970s. Something his son now rules the roost of. More importantly, the Salim-Javed duo also created the persona of the “angry young man” for Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan in the 1970s, reflecting the angst of the average Indian. In choosing to be the ordinary man’s “hero” as opposed to a thespian in new Bollywood, Salman Khan remains tightly linked to his father’s oeuvre. Thanks dad.

THE SPECS

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How has net migration to UK changed?

The figure was broadly flat immediately before the Covid-19 pandemic, standing at 216,000 in the year to June 2018 and 224,000 in the year to June 2019.

It then dropped to an estimated 111,000 in the year to June 2020 when restrictions introduced during the pandemic limited travel and movement.

The total rose to 254,000 in the year to June 2021, followed by steep jumps to 634,000 in the year to June 2022 and 906,000 in the year to June 2023.

The latest available figure of 728,000 for the 12 months to June 2024 suggests levels are starting to decrease.

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Living in...

This article is part of a guide on where to live in the UAE. Our reporters will profile some of the country’s most desirable districts, provide an estimate of rental prices and introduce you to some of the residents who call each area home.