Editor’s note: In honor of Vogue Runway’s 10th anniversary, our writers are penning odes to the most memorable spring 2016 shows. Up first: Virgil Abloh’s runway debut with Off-White.
Off-White was already generating significant heat—buzz, fascination, and yes, skepticism—ahead of Virgil Abloh’s first show, which took place on his 35th birthday. The location—Galerie Joseph, on rue de Turenne in a northern corner of the Marais—looked like a Paris atelier crossed with a SoHo loft.
Small and intimate compared to what the Off-White shows would become, the contemporary space helped concentrate the anticipatory energy that was palpable as guests took their spots on the long rows of benches.
Abloh, at least at the outset, had his factions. There were the people who knew and admired him for his previous creative projects and/or those with Kanye West (back when the rapper still went by his full name and had launched the Yeezy sneakers earlier that year). Then there were the fashion insiders curious about whether Off-White amounted to more than its cleverly developed graphic ideas and cool, youthful style. Whether the real deal or hype machine, the show represented a turning point for the brand, even if no one could predict what direction this might take.
Previously, I had met Abloh during the look-book photo shoots—a relatively chill setting where the activity flowed at a drawn-out cadence. Now, backstage before the show, the scene was more frenetic, but Abloh appeared unfazed as he adjusted a model’s blousy shirt that buttoned up the back or fielded questions from his team.
His wife, Shannon, was there, as was their daughter, Lowe, who was likely around three years old and wearing floral-print mini Doc Martens boots. I wonder whether she has any memories of that day.
Abloh and I spoke for a few minutes, but he also insisted, “You need to be in the dark, just like everyone else!” He said he wanted the show “to be a reminder that this is still an art form—not just the clothing but making people gather in a room and creating a moment that opens their mind.”
Evident from the first collection that featured Caravaggio images on T-shirts, Abloh was driven by the semiotic intersection of art, fashion, music, and architecture. Here, he drew our eyes up the white wall to a message, printed upside down and inverted, that read, “Why are you looking at.”
Philosophical questions aside, what we were looking was a lineup of just 20 looks that revolved around deconstructing and reconstructing the basics—primarily denim but also white tees, men’s shirts, and Grateful Dead crew shirts (official, not bootleg, and hand-painted in watercolor by an artist pal, Othelo Gervacio). Jeans were reworked with ring-pull zippers, composed as patchwork and draped and pleated as a maxiskirt. He had even gone into the Levi’s archives and had access to some of their precious stock.
I remember thinking it didn’t matter that some of the techniques lacked finesse; this is usually fixable. What interested me was his remixing of references: the newly fresh grunge and club codes, the ode to Margiela in the key of streetwear. Credit goes to stylist Stevie Dance for realizing Abloh’s concept that these looks were about dressing up, not down.
Instead of a final walk, the models appeared wearing clear PVC coats over their looks—“Off-White” Staff Uniform 2013-2016 printed on the back—and stood in formation as Pablo Tomek tagged them with black spray paint.
All along, the music had been eerie. DJ Guillaume Berg merged a track from Gesaffelstein, the sound of rushing wind, and the spoken lyrics from Galaxy 2 Galaxy. An excerpt: “Am I happy with the way my life is going? Do I have a life or am I just living?... Just point yourself in the direction of your dreams. Find your strength in the sound. And make your transition.” This last line, “make your transition,” echoed on as Abloh came out and the audience erupted in applause.
As transitions go, it delivered. Abloh wasn’t trying to prove he had the background of a classically trained fashion designer, but he did want us to experience what happens when reworked denim and bags tagged with diagonal graffiti lines become part of a larger vision that, done right, would ripple across cultures. “I’m hoping to give a different emotion,” he said postshow. In other words, a vibe.
