Virgil Abloh Shares Pics of His LV² Collaboration With Nigo

When Virgil Abloh announced his Louis Vuitton collaboration with Nigo in December, he gave props to the Japanese streetwear pioneer. “Me being at Louis Vuitton is directly attributable to work Nigo’s done in the past,” Abloh said. “A collab project with him—it puts his work in the right context.”

The French luxury goods house famously partnered with Supreme in 2017, when Kim Jones was still LV’s menswear designer, but this hookup is different. There are no logos for Nigo’s brand, Human Made, on these clothes and accessories. In fact, there’s not much streetwear in the collection at all. “Let’s not do the expected,” is how Abloh characterized the interaction between himself and his mentor and friend.

That rings true with a statement Abloh made in an interview Dazed published shortly after the Louis Vuitton and Nigo project was announced. “I would definitely say it’s gonna die, you know? Like, its time will be up,” was how Abloh summed up streetwear’s fate at the time. As offhand as the comment was (see below), it stirred up quite a lot of internet talk in the industry and beyond. Three months later, Abloh has some new thoughts on the topic. He shared them, along with photos of his collaboration with Nigo, exclusively with Vogue.

Tell me about your friendship with Nigo.

He’s among the first real mentors I had in fashion. Since my trajectory was different, had I been a quote, unquote traditional designer, I might’ve gone to New York and apprenticed under Donna Karan. But since streetwear is a new genre of fashion design, those earliest mentors, the Yves Saint Laurent or Balenciaga of streetwear, it’s Nigo, it’s James Jebbia, who founded Supreme. They took what was organically happening within culture—skate and street brands—and they made hard-core brands from that.

Nigo, I was fortunate over 15 years ago to have met him in Japan. He took us under his wing and showed us the ropes of how he was building the brand A Bathing Ape at the time.

What was the process of working with him like?

We met in his studio [in Tokyo]. He has a completely vertical fashion brand with Human Made. In one building, he designs, does the photo shoot, does the manufacturing. I was impressed by that. We had subsequent meetings in my studio in Paris. They were really hands-on. Our strongpoint is the art direction of the concept. What people might be most surprised by is that for two guys known for streetwear history and ability, the collection is completely the opposite. That was our starting point: Let’s not do the expected. Let’s not put streetwear in a box. That’s the epiphany within the collaboration.

You’re doing a lot of tailoring together.

Yeah. If you were to say our names and that we’re doing something at Louis Vuitton, you would almost be able to predict it. But to me fashion with a capital F, it’s supposed to take you on a journey, to lead. Last fall I did an interview where a quote was taken out of context; my sentiment was that streetwear will die.

Virgil Abloh says streetwear is dead. It was the quote heard around the fashion world…

I’m such a novice; I don’t realize that things can even go that far. I’m a little bit naive in that way. It was literally me in my kitchen just riffing on what I’d been thinking. I didn’t say it to be polarizing. I think that in the context of this conversation with Nigo—if you speak to anyone that’s been in streetwear for the last 15 years, it’s always had this sort of nine lives, dying and coming back, and dying and coming back. There’s so many first-generation streetwear brands, stores, and retailers. The market wasn’t as vibrant as it is now, so they went out of business and people don’t remember those. Nigo has had projects before; he’s had many a brand, many identities within streetwear. Partially what I meant that “it will die” is that new things like tailoring from guys like Nigo and me will be born from the regeneration of it.

Back to the collaboration. You’ve put the LV Damier check to good use. It’s not something you’ve touched on yet, right?

A hundred percent. I thought this was a perfect project to do things like that. The mood of the collection started off with our appreciation for the U.K. dandy and the mod era, Savile Row tailoring. That gave us the silhouette; but when it came to adding our own texture within the silhouette, that was very much using the codes of the house.

When I think of Japan, I think of denim. You’ve done some amazing things with the material here.

What the Japanese are known for is great archiving and reinterpretations of Americana. Nigo has one of the most formidable collections; he has some of the very early Lee and Levi’s pieces that were ever found. His personal style, he’s a true connoisseur. He buys his suits on Savile Row. He goes for the experience, the custom bespoke nature of it. Also, his personal collection of denim! When it was a matter of developing these pieces, I thought that was the most authentic [thing], using him as a muse.

So, his influence is in the bags?

He had this brand called Ice cream with this drippy signature. I thought, What if we made that playfulness a little more serious and merged it with the Louis Vuitton signature?

And I see you’ve done a hooded bomber with Mount Fuji on the back.

We would do those pieces in our sleep. But we didn’t want the collection to be 100% that. My program at Louis Vuitton, the overarching vision is father to son. So, having a portion of more mature pieces with youthful pieces.

Let’s talk about the LV² label. Is it only applicable to you and Nigo, or is it a new logo for you plus somebody else going forward?

It’s something for Nigo and me specifically. It’s like a new rap group. Nigo came up with the name of LV². We were from outside having an opinion and just styling it. Now we’re inside designing it and styling it.

What’s the most important thing you’ve learned from Nigo?

It’s a sense of detail, a Japanese precision. But also generosity. He’s extremely heartfelt. I’m American and I work a lot in Europe. In Paris fashion can be cutthroat. It can have this manic feeling. In America it’s very workhorse. Working with him and having him in the studio, seeing his disposition and how he was thinking of the challenge of making tailoring, of how to refine all these ideas, he did it in a very respectful, calm, polite, but very precise way.

So is it really just a one-off?

Yeah, but as we’ve finally finished, there’s already been talks that this could be an ongoing logic. I think both sides are open to it, so I wouldn’t rule out that other things could come. I can say the future will involve a way of activating this collection, when it comes time to release, that will be more immersive than just simply putting it out into stores. We both have a passion for eventizing these moments. It’s not just the clothes, it’s the context.

Source: Vogue

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Philipp Plein Fall 2020 READY-TO-WEAR

Philipp Plein felt bad about the two gold helicopters. Along with the two gold fighter jets and the gold sort-of Sunseeker and the gold supercars that decorated this stadium show space, they were props that had been commissioned late last year. “If I would have known what happened, after the accident, I would not have put helicopters there…. It was terrible what happened, but I couldn’t cancel the helicopters anymore. So I just wanted to say this.” Not only did Plein get that said preshow backstage, but postshow on the podium with Tyga—following a finale featuring Plein-logo, almost Lakers purple, Swarovski-encrusted, number 24 basketball shirts—he added that he was making a donation to the Mamba & Mambacita Sports Foundation in memory of Kobe Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna.

Say what you want about Plein—and we always do—his presentations are impressive. This one featured not only Tyga but also Jada Pinkett Smith opening the show, Missy Elliott in the audience (due to perform alongside Timbaland at the closing party), and a cast that was sprinkled with faces including Maye Musk (because PP had been in touch to try to cast Elon’s new truck but ended up casting his mom), Cameron Dallas, Bambi, and Gigi Gorgeous. Most impressive of all was that there were 3,000 people in the audience (totally immune to the coronavirus outbreak barely 20 miles away) holding up their phones and streaming it all to social.

The true motive behind all this hoo-ha was the launch of a fragrance that Plein has named No Limits. He hard-selled it from the podium at the beginning of the show and had said earlier that the set was an imagined landscape if you had a no-limits credit line. He expanded thus: “Women have a lot of ideas. They would probably go shopping. And guys would probably do what I would do. I mean, I think I’m a good example for being a little bit crazy, and what I would do is make a big party like tonight.”

The clothes that reflected this party were perfectly Plein-ian. They featured more tiny wannabe studs than a PUA convention. The emphasis was on gold—although PP says he’s a silver man—as a line in the sand to this challenge to Paco Rabanne’s domination of the balls-out, all-subtlety-barred fragrance consumer. There was some pretty good suiting for men and some half-decent (but still more-than-risqué) sequined dresses for women, and cool emoji embroideries on a fishtail parka featuring graffiti dollar signs.

By the end of this seemingly endless but endlessly entertaining show, you had to hand it to PP: He’s a democratic designer. What that says about democracy is another issue entirely.

Source: VOGUE

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Bottega Veneta Fall 2020 Menswear

In between his last show and this one, Bottega Veneta’s Daniel Lee swept London’s Fashion Awards, scooping up four statuettes, more than any designer has ever managed to win in a single year before. Among the prizes were the designer of the year and the brand of the year. Lee has the industry’s attention, that’s clear. Fashion loves a new guy, and collectively we’ve determined he’s “it.” There was not one, but two major profiles of Lee published in the days before this Milan show. Tonight’s collection, his third on the runway, suggests he has the goods to back that up.

He definitely has the guts. After scoring his first hit with the Pouch bag, a clutch that shrugged off the house patrimony woven intrecciato leather, he did the contrarian thing this season: He embraced the intrecciato. Only his intrecciato pouches come with a difference: They’re double-faced, meaning they’re unlined and the leather strips are double-sided, so the same exceptional workmanship visible on the exterior of the bag is exposed on the interior. It’s the kind of modernizing touch—apparently instinctual, but in the end quite thoughtful—that Lee is making his own. Consider another: a high-heeled sandal that curled ergonomically around the ankle and was made on a 3D printer, BV’s first stab at the process and quite a sexy one.

Previewing the accessories at a showroom appointment, Lee extemporized about Bottega Veneta. “When you look at the brand’s beginnings, everything it made was so soft. I find that super inspiring.” That thinking informed the ready-to-wear he put on tonight’s runway. But equally, so did the fact that at 34 Lee is part of the street wear generation, a cohort that came up wearing Nike trainers and clothes that put an emphasis on cool and comfort. Explaining his approach to fall at BV he asked, “How do we put ourselves together in a considered, elegant way but still feel comfortable?”

His answer was stretch. Even the men’s tailoring was built with stretch in it, he said, so it moves with the wearer. This was the big change from his debut to today. Last February he seemed mostly concerned with the profile cut by a man or a woman in Bottega Veneta. A year later he’s come to understand that the way his clothes feel to the bodies inside them is just as important a selling point. That’s why you’ll see a big emphasis on both knit dressing and jersey, for both day and evening. The other major talking point here was all the fringing. For one reason or another fringe been a popular motif in Milan—see also Prada and Jil Sander—but no one has been as audacious on the subject as Lee. His fringed shearlings will be instantly identifiable on the streets a year from now, although truth be told, they would’ve been more powerful if fringe wasn’t already such a collective movement.

This was a confident outing, one that leaned into controlled repetition to drive its points home. Lee has quite handily established his Bottega Veneta as the coolest brand in town. He said he’s been spending a lot of time at La Scala watching dance performances; he likes all kinds, from ballet to modern. With the wind at his back at BV, going forward he should give himself freer rein to explore—to let go.

Source: VOGUE

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FALL 2020 PRADA MENSWEAR

As a swelling and ominous bass obscured heroic but fading trumpets the lights came up over a Prada set that closely resembled one of Giorgio de Chirico’s metaphysical paintings. There were two bare but Palladian-proportioned arched piazzas; in the middle of each was the statue of a man on a horse on a podium—classic 19th-century masculine heroism.

Except, naturally, not quite. The horse and rider were constructed like those cardboard dinosaur statues for kids, from insertable, flat, anonymizing sections. Said Mrs. Prada in her post show debrief: “I wanted an equestrian statue, but of course equestrian is not politically correct, so I told Rem [Koolhaas], ‘Let’s do an equestrian that is totally non-heroic.’”

Which allows us to canter on to the clothes. These were bookended between the bare-armed tank top looks at the top and high notch-collared two-button topcoats at the end: two particularly Prada-ish chapters in the recent masculine narrative of dress. Between them, even if Mrs. Prada indicated it wasn’t the intention, we seemed to take a survey of various professionally specific styles of dress seen through a house eye. There were young executives in three-piece suits or mismatched tailored separates, portfolios thrust between arm and hip, in different volumes of jacket. We transitioned to rural worker in mid-calf boots and oversized corduroy jacket, then onto a more urban kind of Prada hipster freelancer combination of the previous two categories that mixed elements from both and inserted some technical touches and piped sport raised graphics on pocket flaps. Two Macintosh-like rubberized coats matched with baggy pants tucked into beaten leather galvanized sole boots (plus rectangular lensed shades) were a little scientist-fights-contagion. Following those was an absolutely wicked green half-length coat that seemed particularly fashion show reviewer.

De-formalized top-to-toe cotton day pajamas with small ruffled bibs and some great treated shearlings followed. We arrived at those last two topcoats via a series of knits and silks patterned with punchily-colored gridded graphics whose palette nodded to the earlier separates and seemed related to the lavender and olive shapes on the set. They also shared something with the (Google searched in the back of the car) fabric patterns associated with Koloman Moser and other artists of the Vienna Secession (mentioned in an aside by Mrs. Prada during the treasure hunt chat at the end).

“Let me say what’s the point of this show,” she obligingly added: “That in the big—not ‘confusion’—but the complication of the current time between the world going wrong or going better, the discussion on sexes, on surviving or not… I thought to give an indication that the only thing that makes me calm and optimistic is to give value to work… to give value to things that matter in your life and your work. And so the creativity is mixed with technicalities, which is a little bit similar to the Secessionist period when ideas, creativity, and actual work had to be all together.” And going back to that post-triumphant equine statue, was this also about the nature of contemporary heroism? “Not heroic, but heroes… I want to give a hope that in this casino [translation: chaotic world] if you do well your job, paired with intelligence, and with culture, then this already is something… It’s to give respect to work, to effort, to fatigue, and to what is difficult.”

Source: Vogue

FASHIONADO

Fendi Fall 2020 Menswear

Shortly after his participation at the LVMH Prize event last year, the shortlisted designer Kunihiko Morinaga of Anrealage was approached by Silvia Fendi. Would, she asked, he consider being part of her next menswear show? Morinaga said yes, of course, and backstage this morning he could be found watching the final lineup. Fendi, he noted, is a seriously big operation.

When his looks came out the planned Anrealage coup de théâtre did not quite come off. Those of us who attend his women’s shows in Paris could anticipate what to expect, but for the rest of the audience the transformation of his four looks from white slate to logo’d and patterned when placed under UV light was too subtle to startle.

However, that isn’t to say they didn’t make a fitting closing gesture at a show whose very interesting collection felt like it was about putting what is conventionally on the inside on the outside, and about modularity, and about technology, and about the place of classicism in an iconoclastic age—this collection was about a lot. It also looked good.

Backstage, Fendi said her reach-out to Morinaga had come out of the thinking that led to her solar women’s show shortly before that LVMH event last September and because her early thought of this menswear collection had included the notion of “transforming garments.” Away from Anrealage’s photochromatic transformation, Fendi’s shape-shifting attire including three-panel coats in fur or different tones of flannel that could be unzipped according to whether you planned to wear an overcoat, a jacket, or a bolero. There were also pants (from the front) and skirt (from the back) hybrids, which moved easily and looked attractive. There was another dialectic in the patterned jackets, coats, and hats: Some were in patched shearling that looked like cashmere, others in tufted cashmere that looked like shearling. “I want to give everybody the choice,” said Fendi.

She said her fundamental agenda was “to work on the essentials of the classic wardrobe of a man of tomorrow,” and one especially clever, modernizing twist on the classic was bringing the contours of linings and inside pockets to, a whole panoply of coats, vests and jackets. For good measure, Fendi added several credit card pockets and an AirPods compartment, and revived the historical cigar pocket. On contrast tailored jackets, leather jackets, and even shaved shearling, these outlines were both attractive and functional.

Another almost Surrealist but simultaneously functional play on interior and surface was the presentation of bags that appeared to be pieces of Fendi yellow packaging, rather than actual Fendi products. There was an oversize Fendi shopper in leather, and multiple Fendi boxes that were more like tiny trunks. Opening a box to reveal an item designed to be nearly identical to its packaging would surely be the ultimate Barthesian feedback loop.

The packaging riff extended to the garments via yellow taping stamped with Fendi Roma that defined the seams of certain outerwear pieces, and knit bags which had a satisfyingly hand-wrought roughness to them but that also resembled shoe and garment holders. For footwear, Fendi proposed a luxurified version of a mid-calf gumboot, also seen at Dolce, Ferragamo, and Prada. This was a collection rich in obvious luxury, in that the fabrication and construction was both extremely elevated and expertly done. It was also rich in ideas and ambition—a much more subtle but potent ingredient for luxury—and there were in those inside-out pieces quite probably a few of the future classics Fendi said she aspired to.

Source: Vogue

FASHIONADO

Deveaux Fall 2020 Menswear

It's been two years since Tommy Ton joined Deveaux as creative director. The brand’s profile has risen precipitously since the street style photographer signed on, but it’s still a newish arrangement, and Ton and Andrea Tsao, Deveaux’s designer and co-founder, were in a reflective mood at a pre-fall appointment. “We’ve been evaluating what our strengths are and focusing on what’s sold well, but we also wanted to have more fun with this collection,” Ton said. Managing those multiple, contrary instincts takes discipline. Kudos to Ton and Tsao for managing to do so while producing some of New York’s most subtly cool clothes.

Tailoring has proven to be one of Deveaux’s early successes, so they returned to the subject this season, only this time around, going on feedback from customers, they updated their silhouettes to be more body-conscious. A wrap jacket in stretch bouclé fit sleekly underneath a sculptural peacoat in a snakeskin wool jacquard. Another category they have a good handle on is knits. It’s a crowded field, but they’ve got new things to say, among them a polo sweater whose collar buttoned all the way up the chin so it doubles as a turtleneck. “You know I love a two-fer,” Ton said. Also worth mentioning is an unstructured parka in waterproof tech fabric with a faux shearling lining. Its easy beltable shape is the result of people-watching; Ton admired the cocooning oversize shape on certain street style stars.

The unexpected fun came in the form of the colorful patch-worked stripes Ton and Tsao printed on organza (for a camp shirt) and silk charmeuse (for a bias-cut short-sleeved dress), along with another print of color-blocked marble and onyx. These added verve to the mostly neutral lineup, and that’s an agenda they should keep pushing as they continue to grow.

Source: Vogue

FASHIONADO

Burberry Pre-Fall 2020

The main points of the Burberry women’s and men’s pre-fall are as difficult to encompass as is Riccardo Tisci’s task of covering the fashion consciousness of the globe. Perhaps that’s why he thought to include the motif of an old navigational map, which is printed on silk head squares and variously pleated, draped, and patch-worked. It’s a collection that isn’t anchored in any one idea; it travels between disparate tropes, representing the biggest British fashion brand to all generations, for all times and occasions.

Not that you can’t see who’s captain. Tisci’s eye for the elegant and sexy, his far-from-earthy, English-classic countrywear, his aspirational streetwear, and a Kim Kardashian West moment are all logged in this journey around Burberry world. (KKW already wore the beige jeans with a boned corset top in look 14. The skin-tight chestnut leather boot-chaps are actually built in, with pointy stiletto booties completing the sprayed-on illusion.)

Tisci always promised to expand eveningwear when he came to Burberry—he brought knowledge of the territory with him. Burberry evening suits are now a uniform go-to for men on red carpets, while the women’s nighttime is a fully calibrated repertoire ranging from a drop-dead backless goddess silver streak with a snaky train to a bubblegum pink plissé knee-length dress with slashed medieval sleeves, through to ingenuous black tailoring. Women looking for trouser alternatives for the awards season will doubtless leap on the standout opportunities of the graphic cutaway cape coat with a gold chain belt, and the sophisticated yet cool layering of a silk-fringed coat, tabard, and narrow trousers.

Branding for Burberry? Logos are threaded through, for those who care to carry the obvious house identifiers. The recognizable, rounded, retro TB designed by Peter Saville comes as a gilt buckle on handbags, printed on a vibrant padded gilet with a matching checked coat, and appears all over the place in linings. Otherwise BURBERRY is exploded in giant type on nylon parka sleeves.

The Burberry check is less in evidence this season, but Tisci’s translations of country fare very much are. With fashion in the mood for tweediness, his orange-lined checked poncho with a tunic trouser suit underneath looks highly viable for women who’d never go on a shooting weekend, but also for members of international country house society. Otherwise, Tisci’s sweeping view of demographics brings a Euro spin to what he does with quilting—turning a trad-boxy template glam on a jacket with a torso-clinching knitted insert and pairing it with a pencil skirt.

Men’s tradition is well served by a beige car coat that comes with a chocolate brown puffer lining, worn over a blue-and-white striped banker shirt with TB woven into it. There is something very Italian about that—the kind of Italian-ness that British men envy and are happy to buy for themselves.

For men too there’s a small section of Econyl outerwear, the branded synthetic fiber, which is regenerated from waste such as fishing nets, carpet, and fabric scraps. It’s one Burberry contribution to the new circular economy. At a moment when the climate crisis is at the top of everyone’s minds, resetting luxury to align with fossil-fuel-saving resources like this can’t happen fast enough.

Source: Vogue

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