User:Ide4749/sandbox

Off-White (stylized as OFF-WHITE c/o VIRGIL ABLOH) is a fashion label founded by American creative designer Virgil Abloh in Milan, Italy in 2012. The brand has 24 stores around the globe and is carried by luxury high-end stores; Barneys, Selfridges, Harrods and Le Bon Marché. Off-White is trademarked through its use of quotation marks, zip ties, yellow industrial buckle belt design and its four-way arrows that create a cross. undefined The brand has collaborated with many well-known companies, artists, and designers while adding its own aesthetic to the products. Off-White has become a popular brand world wide, amongst other high-end brands such as Gucci, Balenciaga, and Nike.

History
The brand was first founded as an artistic expression titled "PYREX VISION" by DJ, creative designer and businessman Virgil Abloh in the Italian city of Milan in 2012. Off-White was described by the founder, Virgil Abloh, to be “the gray area between black and white as the color off-white” to the fashion world. During the launch of Off-White, help was received from the New Guards Group. Off-White started to circulate within the Paris Fashion Week shows, and its popularity grew more in Hong Kong, Tokyo, and New York, where it would be showcased within retail stores.

Signature Styles
With a current 7 million followers on Instagram and 152.5 K followers on Twitter the brand Off-White has made a name for itself over the last several years. Off-White is known for its expensive, and rather unusual streetwear that has mainly T-shirts, hoodies, and shoes that is now making an appearance in the high fashion world. From the brands $1,000 sweatshirts, $700 shoes with the word “Shoelaces” written on them, and simple black dresses with the words “Little Black Dress”.

Off-White has designs and items that are specific to the brand that include a  “zebra pattern”, known as diagonals spray and the moniker “WHITE” as one of their most known designs. The shoes include a zip tie on the upper part of the laces that helps distinguish them from the common retail tag. The most recognizable trademark of Off-White is the four-way arrows that create a cross, commonly found on Off-White’s website. Signature items include the 200-meter long yellow and black industrial buckle belt. All products designed ironically state the name of the particular object or some other form of irony about the products use, or relation to a collaboration. These words are put into quotation marks which creates a even more irony for the unique feature. According to the designer, Virgil Abloh, the reason for the quotation marks is that everything remains indefinite, leaving room for questions.

Early life and education
Virgil Abloh was born on September 30, 1980, in Rockford, Illinois, to Ghanaian immigrant parents. His mother was a seamstress. His dad was a manager in a paint company. Abloh was raised in Rockford, where he attended Boylan Catholic High School, graduating in 1998. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 2002 with a Bachelor of Science degree in civil engineering. He received his Master of Architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology in 2006. While Abloh was attending the  Illinois Institute of Technology there was a building created called the Rem Koolhaas which helped spark his aspirations for fashion.

2009–2013: Rise to prominence
After graduating from university, he interned at Fendi in the same class as rapper Kanye West in 2009. Placed in the company's Rome, Italy office, the two began a collaborative relationship. During his collaborative work with the well-renown rapper and designer, he caught the eye of the Louis Vuitton CEO, Michael Burke, through his outlandish takeaways on Fendi. Later that year, Abloh and Kanye West's companion, Don C, launched a retail store, called the RSVP Gallery, located in Chicago. Their founded retail space became known for carrying a mixture of fashion apparel, from streetwear to high-end brands, and for its reflection of Virgil's style on his design for the store interior. A year later, West appointed Abloh the creative director of his creative agency, DONDA. In 2011, West asked him to serve as the artistic director for the 2011 Jay-Z/Kanye West album Watch the Throne. In 2012, Abloh launched his first company, Pyrex Vision, a small boutique of couture streetwear. Abloh purchased deadstock clothing from Ralph Lauren for $40, screen-printed designs on them and sold them for prices upward of $550. He closed the company down a year later as he did not intend it to be a commercial enterprise but an artistic experiment.

2013–2017: Off-White and mainstream success
Abloh founded his first fashion house and second business overall in 2013 with the high-end streetwear brand Off-White. Based in Milan, Italy, the company was described by Abloh as "the gray area between black and white as the color off-white" to investors and fashion critics. During the launch of his brand, he received help from the New Guards Group, who also assisted many other designers and brands, such as Palm Angels, Heron Preston, and Marcelo Burlon. Abloh's streetwear-meets-couture vision for brand lead towards a widespread gain of attention for his apparel beginning in Paris, then expanding to China, Tokyo, Japan and the United States. The clothing line became identified through its unique use of quotation marks, zip-ties, capital letters and barricade tape. He launched the company's women's wear line in 2014 and showed the collections at the Paris Fashion Week. His line was selected as a finalist for the LVMH Prize, an industry award, but lost to Marques'Almeida and Jacquemus. Abloh launched his first concept store for Off-White in Tokyo, Japan, where he started the company's furniture arm, Grey Area. In 2017, he was asked to design a new collection in conjunction with Nike entitled "The Ten" where he re-designed a variety of the company's best-selling shoes. Through Abloh's re-designing he exercised his self-made rule of only editing the shoes 3% of the way because he was intrigued by still maintaining the original design of the shoe.

2013-2017: Off-White and further collaborations
Virgil also partnered up with the Swedish furniture company IKEA to design furniture for apartments and houses. The collection will be named Markerad which is a Swedish word meaning "clear-cut; crisp; pronounced" and is scheduled to release in 2019. Virgil envisions the collection to adapt the visualization of a practical brief of furniture, while adding contemporary values to his designs to make them complete. Abloh has worked towards fulfilling his vision for the collection by sketching out drafts of generic pieces of furniture, while adding his own aesthetics to the designs by using a doorstop to level out furniture items. Abloh worked on designs for chairs, coffee tables, beds, storage cabinets, mirrors and carpets apart of his collaboration with IKEA. Abloh employs quotation marks stylistically in order to convey ironic detachment from society and social norms. During the rise in neo-nationalism in 2017 Abloh worked with conceptual artist Jenny Holzer to create a line emphasizing the positive aspects of immigration, cultural integration, and globalization. In December 2017, he worked with Holzer again to design T-shirts for Planned Parenthood in response to the Women's March on Washington.

2018–present: Louis Vuitton
On March 25, 2018, Abloh was named artistic director of Louis Vuitton's menswear ready wear line, marking him the first person of African descent to lead the brand's menswear line, as well as one of the few black designers at the helm of a major French fashion house. Upon his acceptance of the position, he stated, "It is an honor for me to accept this position. I find the heritage and creative integrity of the house are key inspirations and will look to reference them both while drawing parallels to modern times". Abloh showed his first collection for Louis Vuitton at the 2018 Men's Fashion Week at the Palais-Royal gardens in Paris. Rihanna was the first person to wear Abloh before the show. Playboi Carti, Steve Lacy, A$AP Nast, Dev Hynes, and Kid Cudi walked for the fashion show. Abloh has since been in high demand for his designs, creating an original outfit designed for Serena Williams to wear throughout the 2018 US Open, a collaboration with Nike. In March 2019, Abloh collaborated with Ikea to start making furniture for millennials. Ranging from cabinets, rugs, coffee tables, and chairs. Abloh has incorporated different elements of style, such as his famous quotation marks around certain words and putting it on different articles of clothing, and in this case different types of furniture. For example, Abloh created a “Door Stop Interruption” on a chair by simply adding a doorstop under a chair to make it elevated. One of Ablohs most coveted items is the Frakta Bag. It is beige with the text "SCULPTURE" imprinted on the side. Virgil teamed up with SSENSE to release a workout collection on March 29th, 2019. This collection contains a variety of workout clothes ranging from; matching leggings and sports bras, athletic sweaters and crop tops. This collection incorporates some of Virgil’s signature designs by including the Off-White yellow sign wrapping around the waste of the pants and bottom of the sports bras. Virgil also includes a three-dimensional addition of his iconic four-way arrows, creating a cross, on the front of the tops and pants.

Art Career
Virgil Abloh has been working with artist Takashi Murakami. Murakami’s artwork is identified by his highly acclaimed “Mr.DOB”; a smiley anime-influenced head with round ears and big eyes. In 2010 Abloh met Japanese contemporary artist, Takashi Murakami while creating the “Graduation” album cover for American rapper, Kanye West. In 2018, Virgil collaborated with Japanese contemporary artist, Takashi Murakami, on a series of artworks that brought the fashion world to the art world but ultimately transcended both to create something more. The artists discuss their careers and the collaboration at length in their interview for Cultured magazine's fall 2018 issue where they are featured as the cover stars. Abloh was given a solo art show in Murakami’s Kaikai Kiki art gallery in Tokyo, Japan. Currently, Virgil Abloh is expected to have his first solo art exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. There have been numerous occasions where their artwork has been showcased such as the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, Tokyo’s Oz Zingaro, and the Gagosian Gallery in London. Abloh and Murakami have also collaborated to produce "America Too", a show featuring 35 works that is on display at Gagosian Gallery Beverly Hills outpost through October 25. In June 2018, the two had an art exhibition at the Gagosian Gallery in Paris, France. Named “Murakami & Abloh, Technicolor 2” Takashi states in an interview “We’re both from different fields: I’m multidisciplinary, he practices his art and so where we meet in the middle are these contemporary icons of current culture.”

Personal life
Abloh met his wife, Shannon Sundberg, in high school. They married in 2009. He maintains a house in Lincoln Park, Chicago, with his wife and their two children, Lowe and Grey. He travels 350,000 miles a year for his work. He is of the Ewe ethnicity of the Volta region in Ghana.

Awards and honors
Abloh received his first major award in 2011 when his work designing the cover art for the 2011 Jay-Z/Kanye West album Watch the Throne was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Recording Package. In 2015 Abloh for Off-White ℅ Virgil Abloh was one of the finalists for the LVMH Prize. Abloh was the only American designer to be nominated for the award. Abloh's Charlie Hebdo-inspired “War is Not Over!” tees as well as his freshly-painted-looking toppers from his fall 2015 women's collection gained him the most traction. He received the Urban Luxe award at the 2017 British Fashion Awards. He also won International designer of the Year at the GQ men of the year awards in 2017. Derived from predominantly his role as creative director for his brand Off-White as well as collaborations with powerhouses named Nike. Abloh's Off-White Air Jordan “the Ten” collaboration won 2017's Shoe of the Year, received nods for Accessory Designer of the Year. Abloh was listed as one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people in the world in 2018, one of two designers named that year. In an article for Time, proclaimed Japanese artist Takashi Murakami said that the youth is inspired by his innovations and creativity. Takashi Murakami was impressed of Abloh's feats that lead him to one of two designers on the list. In 2019 Abloh was nominated for Menswear Designer of the Year.