Virgil Abloh, who made diversity a force for fashion, dies at 41

One of the fashion industry’s most prominent black executives has died of a rare and aggressive cancer.

US fashion designer for Louis Vuitton, Virgil Abloh died of a rare cancer. Picture: AFP.

Many called him a genius. He called himself “a maker”.

What is clear is that the fashion industry has lost a force like no other in the passing on Sunday of creative maverick Virgil Abloh, aged just 41.

The founder of fashion label Off-White and artistic director of menswear for Louis Vuitton fused the worlds of streetwear and luxury, while also forging a pathway for inclusivity and diversity in the luxury realm.

Abloh kept his diagnosis and treatment for cardiac angiosarcoma, a rare form of cancer, a private matter for the past two years. It meant that he could continue his workaholic tendencies until the end, which crossed the boundaries between fashion and art, furniture and music.

From the outside, there was certainly no slowing down of his projects. Earlier this month, a mid-career retrospective of his cross-genre work opened in Qatar.

Luxury conglomerate LVMH, owner of Louis Vuitton, had recently taken an increased 60 per cent stake in Off-White, and promoted Abloh to a new position that would allow him to work across the group’s 75 brands, including those in champagne and hospitality.

At the time, Abloh said: “My eyes have always been wide in terms of fashion, arts and culture and how they can merge together.

“I’m also honoured to use this partnership to deepen my longstanding commitment to expand opportunities for diverse individuals and foster greater equity and inclusion in the industries we serve. This is an incredible new platform to take the disruption we’ve achieved together to a whole new level.”

Bernard Arnault, chief executive of LVMH, said in a statement: “We are all shocked after this terrible news. Virgil was not only a genius designer, a visionary, he was also a man with a beautiful soul and great wisdom.”

Only the second black designer to head up a luxury label, after Balmain’s Olivier Rousteing, Abloh was committed to inclusivity.

Last year, triggered by the social upheaval of the Black Lives Matter movement, he raised $US1m to establish the Post-Modern Scholarship Fund to encourage black students in fashion.

With a degree in civil engineering and a master’s in architecture, Abloh had no formal fashion design training, although he learnt the basics of the craft from his mother, who was a seamstress.

Rather, he was as much a conceptual artist as designer who understood the power of marketing, social media and collaboration to harness a following, question the establishment and provoke change. Following his first show for Louis Vuitton in June 2018, which included 1500 students in the audience, Abloh told the New York Times, “There are people around this room who look like me. You never saw that before in fashion. The people have changed, and so fashion had to.”