Anyone who was a friend or a fan of Virgil Abloh knows that his birthday, September 30, invariably fell during Paris Fashion Week. No matter how the show calendar shifted around, and how low-key he kept the celebrations, the occasion coincided with people being in town from all over, with his latest Off-White collection, with him DJing parties and attending the shows of his peers.
So it feels both meaningful and fitting that this day will mark the opening of “Virgil Abloh: The Codes,” a Paris exhibition that puts a fresh spin on his vast body of work and represents the first major European exhibition devoted to the magnanimous and paradigm-shifting designer.
The show is being developed and produced by the Virgil Abloh Archive™ in partnership with Nike, and will take place at the Grand Palais, which recently unveiled the second phase of a major renovation. Occupying 13,350 square feet of the gallery space, it will showcase prototypes, objects, images, and sketches that attest to Abloh’s incomparable output over two decades. This means all his areas of interest: fashion, architecture, footwear, music, furniture, art, graphics and much more.
Of the approximately 20,000 objects that make up the Virgil Abloh Archive™ (the trademark symbol, a uniquely VA flourish), roughly 5% will be featured, which translates to something like 1,000 traces of the designer in some form or other, and much of it never seen by the public.
What already feels compelling about the framing of the exhibition is that everything on display sheds light on Abloh’s way of creating—how process-oriented he was and what this actually entailed. For every hypebeast product, there would have been any number of decisions and discussions with collaborators.
To wit, the designer famously used WhatsApp as the medium through which brainstorming was brought to life, and apparently there will be photos of various exchanges, along with elements from his personal collection and library.
“We want to showcase all the ways that Virgil thought,” Athiththan Selvendran told Vogue ahead of the announcement. Known as “Athi” since joining Abloh as an assistant in 2016, he now holds multiple roles of Chief Operating Officer of Virgil Abloh Securities, Chief Creative Officer of the Virgil Abloh Foundation, and Director of the Virgil Abloh Archive.
“It’s his whole journey, and we want to make sure that people remember and see and are able to be present within that world of what he created,” he said. “The power that [his work] has is for everyone—any single person who has some sort of creative energy.”
The exhibition, curated by longtime Abloh collaborators, Chloe Sultan and Mahfuz Sultan, builds upon a 2022 show focused on Abloh’s architectural codes that was presented at the Rubell Museum during Design Miami. Now directors of the Archive, which is physically located in the Midwest, they have been assisting Shannon Abloh, who established the Virgil Abloh Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Virgil Abloh Securities in the aftermath of her husband’s death in 2021. “They are leading the work that highlights Virgil’s creative logic—his methods, intentions, and voice—and all that energy. They have been close to his process, which is integral to his work.”
Of course, much of that work was the basis for Figures of Speech, the 2019 retrospective that Abloh directed at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. Here, the glimpses of both the familiar and the unfinished, the completed items and the work-in-progress suggests a new way to appreciate what made Abloh such a formidable and multi-disciplinary creator.
Now, if you are already considering a visit, this is where we note that the Paris exhibition runs only until October 10, a much tighter window than the typical museum show. On the plus side, there will be additional programming in the form or dialogues, workshops, performances, screenings, and publications with the aim of providing virtual access for a worldwide audience unable to attend in person. Selvendran hinted that there is much still in the works—including collaborators who will participate in these activations—but let’s assume the lineup will be impressive and ever-present through PFW.
Together with the launch in March of the Abloh Air pilot program, a culture-rich initiative for Chicago students who traveled to London and Paris, we are now seeing Shannon’s efforts to bridge her husband’s influence and vision from past into future. In a statement, she noted that this is just the beginning. “Sharing his personal collection, unfinished projects, and magnum opuses with the public is a monumental way we celebrate Virgil’s legacy and his commitment to making information accessible and collaborative. Through the Archive™, Virgil will live on as a source of inspiration and a beacon of creative knowledge,” she said as Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Virgil Abloh Securities, Founder and Board President of the Virgil Abloh Foundation and President and Chair of the Virgil Abloh Archive™.
While we have lived through any number of hype cycles since Abloh’s death, his absence is often palpable. Simply seeing the logo for Virgil Abloh Archive—a kind of groovy yet corporate design that he created—instantly brings us back into his world. Naturally, people are going to want a piece of it. Selvendran could confirm this much, “as you know, there is always merch.”
“Virgil Abloh: The Codes,” a Grand Palais Exhibition in Partnership with NIKE, will run from September 30 through October 10, 2025.