Whether you’re after boys in fur or even boys as buildings, Virgil Abloh’s latest collection has it all.
“Within my practice, I contribute to a Black canon of culture and art and its preservation. This is why, to preserve my own output, I record it at length.” These are the immortal words of Virgil Abloh, taken from a manifesto he penned in 2020. I hope he’s got a few scrapbooks spare, because preserving all the greatness on offer from his latest collection for might take a while.
The high-concept, high-drama production took particular inspiration from James Baldwin’s 1953 essay Stranger in the Village, which details parallels between the author’s experiences as an African-American man in a Swiss village in comparison to his life in America, and, as an extension of this, how it feels to be a Black artist in a world of art created from the perspective of white Europeans.
Playing out in a performance art piece, Abloh’s boys assume the role of artists, salesmen, architects, drifters and just about any ‘normal’ male archetype you can think of. Though instead of uniforms, these men don swathes of thick, fur-trimmed knit, in emerald green or haybale brown. They command attention in statement coats that cascade to puddles on the ground, or just let you see right through in clear, monogrammed plastic.
Should they not feel the cold, they’ll be office-bound in the crispest of white shirts fitted with shoulder pads sharper than a quick-witted old queen, or made-up in art that is yet un-designed. Abloh’s vision here is one of cross-pollination, where Ghanian Kente cloth is reimagined with the sensibilities of Scottish Tartan, where pleated skirts are trousers, where leather gloves aren’t just for a dominatrix. But most importantly, his designs have to work together, in every stitch and combination of pattern, as they form the future of fashion. I mean, just try telling us you aren’t even a teenie bit obsessed with this mix of formal fits and larger than life outerwear, we dare you…
Our New Year’s resolution is to get our hands on the LV imprinted metallic raincoat by the end of the year, otherwise, we’re doing something seriously wrong.
