American designer, entrepreneur and founder or mega fashion label Off White, Virgil Abloh, has died.
The 36 year old who has been artistic director of Louis Vuitton men’s wear since 2018 died of cancer on the 28th of November 2021. It was announced on Louis Vuitton’s Twitter page.
Born on September 30, 1980, in Illinois, to Ghanaian immigrant parents, his mother was a seamstress while his dad managed a paint company.
Virgil, who is a trained architect, ventured into the fashion world with Chicago street fashion. He then bagged an internship at Fendi in 2009 alongside American rapper Kanye West. Both artistes then began a collaboration that would then launch Abloh’s career into founding Off-White.
The first American of African descent to be artistic director at a French luxury fashion house, he was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2018.
Abloh battled cancer privately for years, but it never impeded or influenced the pace of his work as he only rose further and further toward the end of his life.
He met his wife, Shannon Sundberg, in high school. They married in 2009. He lived in Chicago with his wife and two children. Abloh was of the Ewe ethnicity of the Volta region in Ghana.
RIP.
scribblesurban.wordpress.com 