Question everything

In Figures of Speech, an essay entitled, Virgil Abloh: A Hundred Percent, Virgil Abloh and Anja Aronowsky Cronberg write:

Get this. I was the idiot who believed that all fashion design was deeper than just clothing. I thought each season was about a concept that represented a larger idea. Don’t get me wrong, I know some are. But I was watching the glitz and the glam of a fashion designer behaving like a god. That’s why I bought clothes: I thought they were linked to someone possessing a higher power because that’s how it’s presented. As if every collection comes from deep within the designer, rather than from references from the past. As a consumer, I sucked it all up. I believed it. And I thought, when I start Off-White, I’ll make sure I can speak to anyone for an hour about what it all means, what it’s responding to. Then I realized that that isn’t standard practice at all. I was so naive. I thought that there was a community of designers at the very top. I didn’t know about the cattiness and the competition. I come from being a tourist in this world, a fan. I came to Paris wanting the Eiffel Tower, if you get what I mean. And I encountered a bunch of people who were only into Villa Savoye, who were like “The Eiffel Tower? Nah, no way. That’s a tourist trap.” I’m starting to realize how gatekeepers have been used to uphold false idols. Like, I pick up an art text, read it, and think, wait what — this is what’s been presented as fact? Same with fashion. So I would say to anyone, look under the hood. Question everything including me, this exhibition, this text… [Laughs]

See also Aronowsky Cronberg’s conversations with Virgil in Vestoj (on doubt, and on his life), as well as creating a perception.

You’ll also like these other quotes from Virgil Abloh.

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