There is no failure

When Virgil Abloh was planning his lecture at RISD, he decided that he was going to make a product on campus and that would be the subject of his talk. He would need to take this assignment in between all of his other prior commitments, such as leading his self-initiated fashion label Off White. He started by buying RISD sweaters from the campus store. 

Halfway through this chaotic day, a thought came to him, “Oh that was a good idea, but I’m not going to be able to execute it, so I’ll just give up on it.” He responded to himself later on with a motto, “I have got to do it. There’s no failure.”

He adapted to this constraint by asking the students around him—wherever he was—for help. They would point him to equipment, make suggestions for designs, or even help sew or execute the project.

Virgil ended up with two unfinished ideas. One was a deconstructed sweatshirt that was cut up the middle, and the students helped him print the date down the middle in his signature typography. The other was intended to be a raincoat, but instead ended up as a transparency layer on a sweatshirt—which he made with just a few minutes left until the talk. He said at the lecture, “This is the beginning of an idea that I’m really excited by.” (Perhaps the Off-White x Rimowa transparent luggage was the end result of this idea.)

As he showed both of these ideas during the lecture, he cautions that perfectionism doesn’t advance anything as a creative. He says: 

The only failure is not to try. Designers, creators, or artists—we have a natural convention to be tormented, a little bit of an inner struggle. Is the work living up to its fullest potential? Or is it as great as the work that you idolize from your design idols? But at the end of the day, it’s your body of work and so the amount of work and the refinement of that work will define who you are as a creative. Just by this challenge of not being fearful of perfectionism, of being able to do it, then I resulted in not just one idea that I wanted but two.

The lecture is great—you can sense the energy—and very much in the spirit of Creative Doing

If you liked this post, check out my compilation of Virgil Abloh quotes and lessons here.

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