Insight and Inspiration: Inside the New "Louis Vuitton: Virgil Abloh" Coffee Table Book

Virgil Abloh, via Louis Vuitton, is settling near you.

Scheduled to be published by Assouline on September 15, "Louis Vuitton: Virgil Abloh" takes stock of the late designer and visionary's work for the French house, listing the highlights of his eight collections for the house and s... striving to tap into what inspired the spirit that inspired so many.

Although this is the first book on Abloh since the designer passed away - who had served as men's creative director at Louis Vuitton and helmed his own luxury brand, Off-White - in November 2021, he was probably the one who best described this brilliant compilation of pages of his work: "You witness a black imagination shamelessly exposed," he wrote in a manifesto in July 2020 (boosted by the racial unrest in the wake of the murder of George Floyd), which is featured in the opening pages of the book, though it relates more broadly to the work of creation.

Featuring two collector's silk clamshell covers - one featuring cartoon artwork by artist Reggieknow, who created the cult characters in Abloh's Spring 2021 show video titled "The Adventures from Zoooom with friends", and another from Louis Vuitton's Spring 2022 show in Miami which features a red hot air balloon in the sky with the house's logo, a nod to the embrace of the youth of Abloh; the book is an invitation to imagine before it is even opened.

Channeling the colorful world of Abloh throughout, writer Anders Christian Madsen's introduction opens with a sunny yellow spread. His focus, as someone who has often collaborated with Abloh, including on his July 2020 manifesto and exhibit notes for his Louis Vuitton collections, seems to lead the world to understand Abloh as some in his inner world have. do. Not as the first black designer appointed to this position at Louis Vuitton, nor as someone who "intercepted" the heights of fashion without a fashion design background and with a penchant for streetwear, but rather as a than someone who fiercely honored their childish imagination, whose "mind was mind blowing" and who had more than every right to be positioned in one of fashion's most important design positions.

Virgil Abloh. Acielle WorldStyle

"The childhood ideology that framed his practice represented the untouched vision of a child who was not yet affected by the preconceptions of society. Using fashion as a tool, Virgil wanted to reset perceptions that we link to human genetics, body language, and the way we choose to dress. He wanted to start from scratch, where clothes were just clothes and humans were just humans,” Madsen writes in the introductory pages, which...