IIT M ARCH GRADUATE VIRGIL ABLOH NAMED Men’s Artistic Director for Louis Vuitton
Virgil Abloh is a noted contemporary artist, architect, engineer, creative director, and designer. An Illinois native, he earned a degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Wisconsin Madison, before completing a Master's Degree in Architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology (M ARCH '06).
Abloh’s brand Off-White c/o Virgil Abloh™ was started in 2012 as an artwork titled "PYREX VISION." In 2013, the brand premiered a seasonal men's and women's fashion label showing runway collections during Paris Fashion Week since 2015. He has been awarded various prizes, most recently winning the British Fashion Awards Urban Luxe award and International Designer of the Year at the GQ Men of the Year Awards in 2017. Abloh has also presented his work at major design institutions around the globe including Harvard Graduate School of Design, Columbia Graduate School of Architecture Planning & Preservation and the Rhode Island School of Design.
He has worked collaboratively with a diverse range of artists, from a 2017 project with Jenny Holzer to his longstanding creative partnership with Kanye West. In 2019 he will have a major exhibition of past and current work at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.
His first show for Louis Vuitton will take place in June, during Men's Fashion Week in Paris.