RCA launches Virgil Abloh scholarship for black British students

A scholarship for underrepresented communities in the creative and design industries in honor of fashion designer Virgil Abloh, who died last year, has been launched by the Royal College of Art (RCA).

< p class="dcr-18sg7f2">The RCA Virgil Abloh Scholarship is to be offered annually to "an extraordinarily talented, but financially limited, black British student".

< p class="dcr-18sg7f2">Alboh, an acclaimed fashion designer who died in November 2021 was the founder of Off-White alongside his role as artistic director of menswear at Louis Vuitton. He had a close relationship with the RCA after joining as Honorary Visiting Professor in 2020.

The £35,000 scholarship was created with funding from an anonymous donor in the United States. It will cover the full tuition of any postgraduate program in the School of Design, including Fashion, Textiles and Design Products. Typical tuition fees for these programs range from £14,175 to £33,200. The scholarship also includes industry experience and networking opportunities.

Abloh was a strong advocate for equality in education and learning. In 2020, he announced that with the support of partners including retail platform Farfetch and Louis Vuitton, he had committed more than $1 million to support scholarships and career opportunities for black students in the States. United through the Virgil Abloh™️ "Post-Modern" Scholarship Fund.

“Systemic change begins at the local level, from the collective efforts of people who take action and raise their own communities. I am committed to ensuring that this social revolution is not just a moment but a movement – ​​and I stand up to the task,” he wrote in an online message.

Born in Chicago, Illinois to Ghanaian immigrant parents, Abloh studied civil engineering followed by a master's degree in architecture. It was in college that he started designing T-shirts.

In 2009, he interned at Fendi alongside Kanye West, the rapper known as Ye.

Abloh's own label, Off-White, garnered a cult following and LVMH acquired a majority stake in it in 2021.

In a world of tradition-driven fashion, Abloh took an unorthodox approach. Quotation marks have become his trademark. He created reusable water bottles with Evian, furniture with Ikea, DJed around the world and made history in 2018 as the first black designer at Louis Vuitton.

In an article about announcing his death in November 2021, his family revealed that he had been privately battling a rare aggressive form of cancer, cardiac angiosarcoma, for more than two years.

Talking about the scholarship, Shannon Abloh, wife of the late designer, said, "Over the years RCA and Virgil have formed a beautiful relationship based on a shared appreciation of the collaboration, creative vision and, of course, education. We know that the RCA Virgil Abloh Scholarship will remove financial barriers to realizing creative potential and empower young talent to dream even bigger. »