Off-White

“Defining the gray area between black and white as the color Off-White” is the all-encompassing motto with which Virgil Abloh proposes menswear, womenswear, and a seemingly endless stream of collaborations with the likes of Levi’s, Moncler, Nike, Warby Parker, and Ikea. If Off-White gained traction through Abloh’s role as Kanye West’s creative director as well as Pyrex Vision, his short-lived T-shirt project from 2012 that became a surprise streetwear phenomenon, Abloh has since established himself as the type of multidisciplinary designer whose output resonates widely with everyone from suburban kids to artists like Jenny Holzer and Tom Sachs. The fact that he entered into fashion unconventionally—he studied civil engineering at the University of Wisconsin–Madison before earning his master’s degree in architecture from the Illinois Institute of Technology—helps explain how he uses Off-White to deconstruct and reconstruct youth culture, graphic design, art history, semiotics, and luxury. His respect for Raf Simons and Martin Margiela is no secret, yet more and more, Abloh is establishing a visual vocabulary of his own, stretching his high-impact diagonal stripes and quotation marks surrounding all kinds of branding into a realm that confidently bridges streetwear and directional fashion. As an LVMH Prize finalist in 2015 and an invited guest of Pitti Immagine Uomo 92 in 2017, his efforts have been acknowledged by organizations that recognize impactful design. With Off-White headquartered in Milan, where it is part of the New Guards Group, and with stand-alone stores around the world, Abloh spends much of his time in transit—and that’s not even accounting for a constant schedule of DJ gigs and speaking engagements at academic institutions including Columbia University and the Rhode Island School of Design. Still, his home remains Chicago, where his wife and two children live, and near where he grew up. And so it seems fitting that among the many ambitious endeavors on Abloh’s horizon is a solo exhibition at Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art, scheduled for 2019.