Courtesy of Louis Vuitton.
In the days that followed Virgil Abloh’s inaugural Louis Vuitton show last June, as the image of his emotional, post-show embrace with long-time collaborator Kanye West went viral, the thought must have crossed the designer’s mind: just how do you top that? With its light-spectrum runway, luggage adorned with neon chains, and a cast that included musicians such as Kid Cudi and Steve Lacy, it achieved exactly what LVMH wanted from Virgil Abloh: buzz, hype, spectacle. The collection, which launched last week at a Tokyo pop up, reportedly outsold the coveted Supreme collaboration of AW17 within two days of opening.
And so, in a bid to eclipse the momentous nature of his first showing, the designer turned to the King of Pop yesterday in Paris as his source of inspiration for AW19 collection. The show’s invitation was a single white bejewelled glove, like that which Michael Jackson famously wore. “A bold choice in this current climate,” observed one Twitter commenter.
The show began not with a model hitting the runway, but with a saxophone solo on a set created to look like a New York street, filtered through the lens of a Broadway stage. Just as his first Louis Vuitton menswear show, there was a focus on tailoring in the opening looks – in hues of grey, rather than white, this time, and with a greater consideration to cut and silhouette. This, you sense, is Abloh making a point to those within the industry who once baulked at the idea of him leading a major luxury house, that he is not here to simply serve up luxury-streetwear, like many might expect. Those streetwear references were indeed present, but they were deployed in a more subtle fashion: Lucien Clarke, the skateboarder who rides for Palace walked, there was a utility vest crafted from the dark, monogrammed leather typically used for luggage, which evoked ‘80s Harlem and the work of Dapper Dan, and the graffiti artist Futura – who operated his own streetwear line, Recon, and collaborated with the likes of Japanese label, A Bathing Ape in the mid-2000s – spray-painted walls on the set throughout the show. This was not the first time Abloh had employed this motif, it also appeared in his SS16 women’s show for Off-White, acting as a sort of gestural bridge between the world of luxury fashion and Abloh’s background in streetwear, skateboarding and hip hop.
Courtesy of Louis Vuitton.
The American designer is at his most potent when he is blending reference points, both high and low, in this way. Few understand that tension better, or how to exploit it to great effect. Where Abloh struggles, it seems, is when he tries to do fashion with a capital F. The inclusion of several undulating, pleated skirts and panelled trousers not only felt dissonant with the rest of the collection, but with Abloh’s aesthetic up to this point. Kerby Jean-Raymond, the Haitian-American designer of New York menswear label Pyer Moss seemed to not only agree, but to insinuate, through a series of Instagram stories, that there were striking similarities between these looks and his recent work. He signed off his with “collection 3 coming soon — when the coast is clear”. In the past, Abloh has made no secret of his bricolage approach to design, which often felt interesting and subversive when he was borrowing from established fashion houses, and repurposing them for another audience. Now, at Vuitton, that dynamic feels decidedly different, particularly if the source of inspiration isn’t a storied fashion house, but a young, independent designer.
“The most universal and recognisable symbol of unity on the planet,” was how the accompanying press release characterised Michael Jackson at yesterday’s show, which marvelled at how he “brought together his audiences around the world in all their diversities, giving them a single beacon to which they could all relate.” Abloh is not the first to have reckoned with the legacy of Michael Jackson in recent times. At the National Portrait Gallery in London last July, Michael Jackson: On the Wall attempted to make sense of his cultural impact, and included pieces from the likes of Andy Warhol, KAWS and David Hammons. In Abloh’s clothes, the idea of Jackson as a uniting force manifested itself in a series of garments and bags that spewed national flags, nodding to the 1985 track, “We are the World”. Indeed, several of the references to Jackson, such as this and the airbrushed Billie Jean t-shirt, felt a little heavy-handed. Others were more subtle: knits and shirts were emblazoned with a motif that drew inspiration from The Wiz – a reworking of The Wizard of Oz, in which Jackson starred alongside the likes of Diana Ross and Richard Pryor. To close the show, there was a guitar solo from Dev Hynes (A.K.A. Blood Orange), with square panels lighting up underfoot as he prowled the catwalk, as they did in Jackson’s “Billie Jean” video, in what felt like a light, fun moment to end on.
For Abloh’s detractors, yesterday once again saw evidence of plagiarism and a production that teetered on the brink of kitsch – there was a back-flipping dancer and even a poem, penned by Abloh himself, to accompany the show. At times, it feels like Abloh is a little too eager to live up to the perception of himself as a consummate polymath. But there was also bulbous outerwear embossed with the LV monogram, Day-Glo sneakers and luggage – which will surely prove to be commercial success and, in turn, please his employers. And there was an audience that included the likes of Offset, Naomi Campbell, Frank Ocean, Timothée Chalamet, and LV collaborator, the artist Takashi Murakami. All of which is testament to Abloh’s genre-spanning sense of worldbuilding and ability to create buzz around his work. Perhaps it was fitting then, that in a collection which celebrated the universal appeal of Michael Jackson, Abloh provided something for everybody.
See more from the collection here:
Photos courtesy of Louis Vuitton.