Virgil Abloh, who died a year ago today, inspired a clear and rapacious passion from his fans, which included legions of young people around the globe — devotees of his many aesthetic whims.
Still, there is an impulse to protect totems of culture from co-option by oppressive forces. We bemoan Hollywood casting decisions and seek the proper credit for TikTok trends as a matter of political urgency, redressing longstanding systemic cruelty.
To Abloh, the current generation “have been graced with equity at birth,” making all of our worldly political concerns irrelevant. Back then, it was easy to imagine forcefully picking apart the idea as naive. Surely, Abloh understood what the oppressed were up against: That it is harder to create power from lack than from plenty. Abloh continues, describing this generation of digital natives as possessing a “self-earned influence.
The same goes for the cultures that inspired him. A Louis Vuitton skate shoe, on its face, is a confounding mash-up of disparate ideas — a luxury sneaker made to be destroyed by an activity that can never be metabolized by the world of luxury fashion. And yet, there are now scores of young skateboarders around the world with keys to rooms they’d never been allowed into otherwise.
Last month, around Halloween, he DJ’d an afterparty for a Lower Manhattan gallery opening. How I found myself in attendance remains a puzzle. I’d gone to the opening at the invitation of a friend, and in a series of events reserved for premium-cable series, found myself strolling through Manhattan with one of Abloh’s longtime collaborators.
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