Marc Jacobs’ reputation as a humorous designer and epic collaborator precedes him. So much so that one of the most popular internet memes referencing his work features an extremely tongue-in-cheek clothing label that reads: “Jacobs By Marc Jacobs For Marc By Marc Jacobs In Collaboration With Marc Jacobs For Marc By Marc Jacobs.” Marc Jacobs’ journey as a designer is a story of creative risk-taking, cultural influence, and boundary-pushing collaborations that have shaped modern fashion. Upon graduating from New York’s High School of Art & Design in 1981, the Teaneck, New Jersey native enrolled at the prestigious Parsons School of Design, where his contemporaries included Isaac Mizrahi and Tom Ford. His graduate collection consisted of a line of oversized sweaters featuring polka dots and smiley faces, which were quickly picked up by forward-thinking boutique Charivari, where Jacobs once worked as a stockboy when he was 15. The sweaters became a staple of early street style in a time when Bill Cunningham’s famous “On The Street” column was one of the few places fashion fans could see how real people were putting together the hottest brands of the day. Jacobs’ graduate collection also earned him prestigious accolades like the Perry Ellis & Chester Weinberg Gold Thimble Award, which recognized outstanding student designers.
These accolades were early harbingers of Jacobs’ meteoric rise. In 1988, just four years after graduating from Parsons, Jacobs was named creative director for Perry Ellis’s women’s design unit. But even before landing the top creative position at one of the most respected American fashion brands at the time, Jacobs’ fashion career was already on an upward trajectory. One of Jacobs’ early champions was Robert Duffy, an executive for the fashion brand Reuben Thomas, who secured him a job designing for Sketchbook, one of their sub-lines. By the mid-1980s, the two had formed a business partnership, and the Marc Jacobs label made its debut in 1986. It only took one year for Jacobs to become the youngest designer ever awarded the Council of Fashion Designers of America’s award honoring new fashion talent—another award named in honor of the late Perry Ellis. From his first collections, it was evident that Jacobs had a unique talent for weaving culture into his clothes, taking inspiration from his nights out at various clubs where he kept tabs on what all the cool girls were wearing. In many ways, he pioneered the now-ubiquitous aesthetic of the “uptown girl with a downtown sensibility.” His most famous (or infamous, depending on who you ask) moment at Perry Ellis was his 1993 “grunge” collection. Inspired by the thrift-store aesthetic of the Seattle music scene, Jacobs transformed flannel shirts and slip dresses into high-fashion staples, printing flannel on rayon, making oversized colorful knit beanies, and licensing the artwork of underground comic artist Robert Crumb, which he printed on graphic tees. The star-studded runway show featured Naomi Campbell, Kristen McMenamy, and Kate Moss, and it was equal parts revolutionary and controversial.
It was evident that Marc Jacobs had a unique talent for weaving culture into his clothes.
The grunge collection should have been a hit, as it came from a place of authenticity; it wasn’t an outsider trying to appropriate a subculture—there was an earnest appreciation that went into the collection. Prior to the show itself, the music video for Sonic Youth’s “Sugar Kane” serves as a testament to its legacy in pop culture. Wishing to utilize Jacobs’ studio space for the music video, the then-unknown band filmed it in New York and wore the collection, not only putting in the sketches and the show itself in the video, but also marking one of the earliest modeling appearances by the ultimate downtown cool girl: Chloë Sevigny. But the critics hated the collection, and a few months later, Marc Jacobs was fired from Perry Ellis. In a 2010 interview, Courtney Love even admits that Jacobs sent her and Kurt Cobain the collection after its debut—they responded by burning it. Perhaps, like many of the moments in Jacobs’ career, this was a case of him being a little too early to a trend.
But that setback certainly didn’t stop the momentum for Jacobs. If anything, it helped him hone a crucial skill for any genre-pushing designer: the art of knowing when, and how far, to push boundaries. Unfazed by the grunge debacle, Jacobs began to build out his eponymous line, expanding into menswear in 1994. The brand developed a reputation for its ability to blend relevant cultural references with a unique kind of accessible luxury. They were clothes that felt like Fashion with a capital “F” but possessed a self-contained modernity. That became apparent when he launched his diffusion line, Marc By Marc Jacobs, in 2001, but also in charitable projects like AIDS T-shirts that merged high fashion imagery with advocacy. Having lost several loved ones to the disease, it was an incredibly personal endeavor. When he was appointed as the creative director of Louis Vuitton in 1997, it set a precedent that his successors have continued to improve upon.
Given the unenviable task of creating something from nothing, Marc Jacobs introduced a ready-to-wear collection at Louis Vuitton—a maison known primarily for its handbags. His debut Fall 1998 show featured 50 looks noted for their minimalism and distinctly American flair, something Vogue called “an American in Paris vibe.” As Jacobs says in the July 1998 issue of the magazine: “I think people were expecting a lot of monograms. It’s impossible to please everyone, but we started at zero—this was a company that had never done clothing before. The clothes were contemporary, classic, luxurious, a backdrop for a luggage company—utilitarian and practical. Was it too utilitarian for the French? Well, you know, one of the first Louis Vuitton trunks was gray and flat so it would be stackable. It was very practical; I mean, there’s a method to all this madness.”
When Marc Jacobs tapped one of his idols, the artist Stephen Sprouse, for a collaborative refresh of the house’s iconic monograms, it marked a transformative era. The “Graffiti” collection of bags altered the one thing Vuitton once told Jacobs he couldn’t touch: the logo. And yet, Sprouse’s scrawled version of the house name was emblazoned all over a series of bags and accessories, with the Graffiti Speedy bag being an instant standout. By printing Sprouse’s graffiti “tag” over the top of the famous “LV” monogram, it created the illusion that a classic LV bag had somehow been vandalised. After all, what was the bag worth if the Sprouse’s neon scrawl all but obscured the coveted monogram design? This was a radical design choice for the time, and the collection resonated with a younger, edgier clientele. This partnership wasn’t just about design; it was a cultural statement, bridging the gap between high art and commercial fashion in a way that felt fresh while maintaining Vuitton’s luxury DNA. It was “logo hacking” two decades before Demna and Alessandro Michele would do something similar at Gucci and Balenciaga, trading the codes and signifiers of the respective houses to create an uncanny-valley collaboration that straddled the line between bootleg and homage. Similarly in 2022, Kim Jones and Donatella Versace joined forces for the “Fendace” collaboration, mishmashing Versace’s Medusa logo with Fendi’s signature interlocked Zucca.
Jacobs’ collaboration with Takashi Murakami in 2003 pushed this concept even further. Murakami’s multicolored monogram bags, streetwear-infused Monogramouflage, and Japanese-influenced cherry blossom prints were a global sensation. They injected whimsy and irreverence into Vuitton’s image, making the brand more accessible without sacrificing its prestige. Murakami and Jacobs’ partnership extended beyond accessories, influencing pop culture through ad campaigns and exhibitions. It invited a new class of monied tastemakers into the fold, becoming must-have items for artists like Pharrell Williams and Kanye West. The long-running partnership continued well into 2008, where the Brooklyn Museum feted a Takashi Murakami exhibit by selling the Louis Vuitton partnership in a street market meant to emulate the counterfeit-ridden Canal Street. Ramshackle shops were built to stock the legitimate collection, with the LV monogram cheekily spraypainted on closed garage doors. Part performance art, part social commentary, the Murakami collaboration epitomized Jacobs’ ability to innovate by combining worlds to create brand new ones. It’s no surprise that after retiring the successful motif for a time, Louis Vuitton decided to resurrect it for its 20th anniversary in 2024.
Throughout his tenure, Jacobs continued to invite artists into the Vuitton fold, from Richard Prince’s painterly works to Yayoi Kusama’s polka-dot motifs. Each collaboration was a case study in expert storytelling, using the artist’s distinct language to recontextualize Vuitton’s heritage. These projects turned the brand’s monogram into a malleable symbol of creativity, setting a template for how luxury houses could engage with contemporary art.
Beyond fine artists, Marc Jacobs also empowered some of today’s best-known collaborators. In 2004, he enlisted NIGO and Pharrell Williams (the future artistic director of Louis Vuitton men’s) to design a pair of sunglasses that have become a modern icon for the house. The Millionaire sunglasses are a silhouette inspired by classic aviators, with added metallic accents that make it not just more luxurious, but a recognizable status symbol. In her book Raising Kanye, the late Dr. Donda West recalled buying a pair for her son at the suggestion of Don C, who thought they were the ideal present for the man who has everything. When Virgil Abloh took the reins of Vuitton’s menswear in 2018, it was one of the first designs he revisited. In fact, he partnered with NIGO to create a spiritual successor in 2022: the aptly named Zillionaires.
Speaking of Kanye West, Jacobs was one of the first high fashion designers to collaborate with the artist on a series of luxurious sneakers. Riding high off the success of the first Air Yeezy sneaker with Nike, it was unprecedented that he would follow that up with a line of shoes for Louis Vuitton. Ranging in price from $840–$1,140, the shoes were pricey for the average sneakerhead even then. Although modern resale prices for the first Air Yeezy have since skyrocketed above that, it was a lofty price of admission for a customer used to paying around $200 a pair—but that didn’t stop them from selling out. The colorful collection consisted of the Don, the Jasper, and the Hudson—taking names from West’s inner circle. One of his nicknames was the “Louis Vuitton Don,” so of course West’s pair is made with cues from popular mid-tops like the Air Jordan 3. Meanwhile, the high-top Jaspers have references to the straps from the Air Yeezy, as well as elements inspired by the obscure high-fashion Japanese sneakers from Ato Matsumoto. As for the low-top tasselled boat sneakers? Those take their name from Mr. Hudson, a songwriter and producer who frequently collaborated with West.
That wasn’t the only time Marc Jacobs lent his collaborative touch to the sneaker world. In 2005, he partnered with Vans on a capsule collection reimagining some of the brand’s most iconic sneakers. The comprehensive collaboration ranged from shiny patent leather interpretations of the Sk8-Hi and Old-Skool to novelty prints on the Classic Slip-On, including one done in the style of a partially-solved crossword puzzle. He brought a high-end touch to a streetwear staple, going as far as making a woven leather checkerboard upper for the Classic Slip-On, and another rendition reinterpreting the humble shoe with plush shearling. Jacobs’ collaborations with brands like Vans further cement his cross-cultural impact, proving that he isn’t just a designer but a storyteller who captures the zeitgeist, interrogating what fashion can mean and who it can speak to.
Not content with simply revitalizing Vuitton’s product and consumer base, Jacobs revolutionized their runway shows. His presentations for Louis Vuitton became theatrical spectacles, from a functioning carousel to a train that pulled into the show venue. These immersive experiences demonstrated how a fashion show could transcend a traditional format and become a cultural event, heightening anticipation for the collections and reinforcing Vuitton’s relevance.
After leaving Louis Vuitton in 2013, Jacobs turned his focus to his namesake brand, experimenting with both commercial ventures and artistic projects. In 2020, Jacobs launched Heaven by Marc Jacobs, a sub-label with digital-native creative Ava Nirui at the helm. Heaven channels a nostalgic yet contemporary aesthetic, with a range of collaborations, from cult designers like Kiko Kostadinov, emerging artists like Yung Lean and Charli XCX, to youth culture icons such as Winona Ryder. The line reflects Jacobs’ enduring ethos of inclusivity and experimentation, resonating deeply with Gen Z consumers while maintaining ties to the DIY culture that inspired his early career. By appointing Nirui to lead Heaven Jacobs has not only proven his enduring ability to recognize and nurture new talent, he’s also cemented his legacy of challenging norms and fostering cross-disciplinary collaborations.
While Marc Jacobs was making his indelible impact on Louis Vuitton as a house and its womenswear collections, Kim Jones was responsible for making sure its menswear line left a lasting legacy, too. Appointed as the style director for the men’s ready-to-wear division in 2011, he replaced Paul Helbers, who held the position for five years. Born in London in 1979, Jones’s childhood was one spent on the move. His hydrogeologist father brought his family to exotic locales for work, spending a significant amount of time in African countries like Tanzania and Kenya. He considered following in his father’s footsteps—weighing a career in conservation or zoology—but ended up more interested in his sister’s expansive collection of fashion magazines. In his teens, he developed the roving collector’s itch that he’s still known for today, starting out with vintage Levi’s pieces before discovering the work of 1980s London designers like Vivienne Westwood, Stephen Linard, Modern Classics, Rachel Auburn, and Christopher Nemeth—whose pieces still remain in his archive today.
Jones taught himself how to design by cobbling together garments in a DIY style largely inspired by the work of Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren and their Seditionaries label. After showing some of his early work to the late Louise Wilson, the esteemed head of fashion at Central Saint Martins, she secured him a spot in the program. His 2002 graduate collection famously caught the attention of John Galliano, who bought half of it. At the same time, Jones was also cutting his teeth in the world of streetwear, working his first job in the industry at Gimme Five, an early distributor of brands like Stüssy, A Bathing Ape, and Supreme founded by Michael Kopelman, who also ran a highly influential boutique called The Hideout with Fraser Cooke. Jones’s experience working with Kopelman and Cooke set the stage for his remarkable collaborations with Supreme and Shawn Stüssy much later in his career.
From the beginning, Jones not only showed a talent for mixing culture, design, and sportswear, he was also a sharp-eyed collector who knew what certain items of his could fetch on the resale market. When he made his eponymous debut at London Fashion Week, he self-funded the collection by selling one of his prized Vivienne Westwood parachute shirts on eBay. Largely inspired by ’90s youth culture and raves, his first collection mixed ombré-dyed denim, tribal print bombers, and patchwork trousers with nylon track pants and Nike Terminator high-tops—a favorite among discerning sneakerheads. Jones’s design codes are characterized by this unique narrative that resonates across various cultural landscapes, often resulting in a seamless fusion of streetwear and high fashion.
In 2006, Jones collaborated with British sportswear brand Umbro on a collection that reimagined the uniforms of football-loving Casuals. Taking quintessentially English colors, his vibrant printed hoodies perfectly complemented a line of minimal sneakers that were elevated with the use of woven leather panels. By 2008, he shuttered his own label after he was appointed as Creative Director at Dunhill, where he was tasked with revitalizing the heritage brand. There, Jones introduced contemporary designs while respecting the brand’s classic aesthetic, striking a balance between tradition and modernity with a worldly lens. He designed items like coach jackets made from luxurious materials, and imbued certain silhouettes with a Japanese flair, creating sportcoats that blurred the line between blazer and kimono. When he landed at Louis Vuitton in 2011, he took that Japanese influence with him.
For his Spring/Summer 2013 collection, Jones enlisted the help of Kiro Hirata to create a collection of genuine Japanese boro denim pieces for Louis Vuitton. Hirata is the heir and designer of cult label Kapital, a brand based in Japan’s Okayama Prefecture, revered for its history of denim production and preservation of traditional denim manufacturing. Boro is an intricate technique that involves weaving together fragments of fabric, usually discarded materials, creating a wabi-sabi, neo-vintage appeal. Only recently has Kapital become more popular in the realm of covetable streetwear, but this early example is a testament to Jones’s prescience and his ability to tap into the cultural zeitgeist.
Jones’s seven-year tenure at Vuitton firmly established the brand’s reputation in menswear. Vuitton’s credibility was in large part thanks to Jones’s ability to understand what was happening in the space and elevate it to a level worthy of a luxury house. For his Fall/Winter 2014 collection, he famously took inspiration from Patagonia’s Retro-X line of fleeces, making them in upscale shearling and leather. A year later, he paid homage to one of his favorite designers, Christopher Nemeth, with a collaborative capsule collection utilizing Nemeth’s rope patterns. Of course, Jones’s tenure at Louis Vuitton is mostly remembered for its notable collaboration with Supreme in 2017.
This groundbreaking partnership merged the worlds of luxury fashion and streetwear in a way no one saw coming. Streetwear had long been infiltrating the realm of high fashion, and for the longest time, it was the antithesis of luxury. Brands like Supreme and Stüssy hacked the logos and motifs of houses like Vuitton, reinterpreting them for a different audience (and at times drawing the ire of those brands’ legal teams). This collaboration shattered a longstanding barrier:what was once a rebellious counterculture had become part of the establishment. Elevating Supreme’s famous box logo hoodie into a luxury piece by adorning it with Louis Vuitton’s monogram and adding details like metal toggles walked a fine line between absurdity and brilliance. It was the ultimate high/low collaboration, a massive collection that included everything from a custom Vuitton trunk designed to carry a skateboard to reinterpreting the house’s grained Épi leather into a chain wallet and a bold red Speedy.
The campaign for the collection stayed true to Supreme’s spirit, enlisting photographer Terry Richardson to shoot it and depicting the epic collaboration on the bodies of Supreme’s most notable friends and family. Old-school Supreme affiliates like Jason Dill and Mark Gonzales shared the spotlight with Supreme’s modern skate team, including Nakel Smith, Sage Elsesser, Aidan Mackey, Sean Pablo, and Tyshawn Jones. It kept the lo-fi visuals that Supreme had built its brand on intact, but with a luxury fashion price tag. The collection also carries the distinction of being one of the few Supreme collaborations that was never sold at any of the brand’s stores. Instead, Louis Vuitton curated special pop-ups where interested consumers could sign up for a chance to dig into the pricey collaboration.
Kim Jones’ tenure at Louis Vuitton is mostly remembered for its notable collaboration with Supreme.
A year after turning the dichotomy between streetwear and luxury on its head, Kim Jones was appointed as the artistic director of Dior Men, where he continued to make collaboration central to his design philosophy. Jones’s approach at Dior reinvented the collab, positioning it as a valid and innovative form of fashion design that enriches the brand’s heritage with modern influences. Jones’s first collection for Dior Men—his Spring/Summer 2019 collection—was designed entirely in collaboration with the artist Brian “KAWS” Donnelly.
“I’ve always wanted to work with KAWS. I think it’s nice that he’s the first person I’d work with at Dior because I love his work,” said Jones in his cover story for Highsnobiety magazine issue 17. “For me, for the generation that’s coming up now, he’s the most important artist in the world.”
The artist left his stamp on every aspect of the collection, rewriting the house name in his signature, comic book-esque typeface, creating a giant floral sculpture of his cartoonish BFF figure with “Xs” for eyes that functioned as a centerpiece for the runway, and even reimagining the house’s signature bee motif. When mixed with Dior’s savoir faire, the result was not just commercially viable jersey pieces and covetable designer sneakers, but even made-to-order embroidered jackets and truly luxurious items that felt like couture pieces—and were priced accordingly. The KAWS collection set the tone for Jones’s Dior tenure: a blend of luxury, art, and street culture.
The strategy of collaboration-as-collection continued for much of Kim Jones’s early Dior offerings. After KAWS, he worked with the Japanese artist Hajime Sorayama, known for his erotic, hyperreal depictions of robotic figures, and later joined forces with visionary artists such as punk illustrator-turned-fine artist Raymond Pettibon, British artist Alex Foxton, and American visual artist Daniel Arsham, known for his uncanny, eroding sculptures of everyday objects. Jones described this approach as having roots in Christian Dior’s affinity for the arts, wanting to work with artists he thought Mr. Dior would appreciate in the here and now. Jones’s collaborations with artists like Daniel Arsham and Amoako Boafo at Dior highlight his commitment to integrating contemporary art into fashion. Boafo’s vivid portraits brought African art to the forefront of Dior’s storytelling, while Arsham’s “Future Relics” aesthetic challenged notions of time and history in design.
But when it came time to find a partner for his Pre-Fall 2020 collection, Jones would break the mold yet again. Closing yet another streetwear circle, he tapped the long-retired Shawn Stüssy to create a collection for Dior. After founding Stüssy in 1980, Shawn Stüssy was the driving force behind the brand, the cultural dot-connector whose very signature made the label what it was. It was he who formed the International Stüssy Tribe, a global collective of like minds that included DJs like Alex Turnbull, the Japanese godfather of streetwear, Hiroshi Fujiwara, and British purveyor Michael Kopelman—the man who gave Kim Jones his first job decades earlier. In 1996, Stüssy retired from the brand he built, focusing on raising his family and returning to his first love, shaping some of the world’s best surfboards. For a time, he dabbled in smaller brand projects, running a label called S/Double that was primarily sold in Japan, but this Dior collection was an opportunity for him to manifest what he knew the Stüssy brand always should have been—a creative, convention-busting powerhouse worthy of the world stage.
Ironically, the collection was marketed as “Dior x Shawn,” since Stüssy as a brand still very much exists, and after a few years of trying to reclaim its former glory, has since regained its respectability without alienating its core tenets of accessible prices and subcultural influences. But Shawn Stüssy’s Dior collection elevated a lot of what made his time at the brand so great—the multicolored influences from reggae, ska, and new wave, the 1980s style inspiration, and the graffiti handstyle slogans, now repurposed with a quote from Mr. Dior: “I want to shock the world with Dior.” And perhaps the most shocking thing about the collection was that it also introduced the world to the first luxury sportswear collaboration.
As good as the collection was, it was almost outshined by the reveal of the Dior x Nike Air Jordan 1. The project cemented Jones’s ability to bridge subcultures with ease, further solidifying sneakers as a key component of modern menswear. Completely made in Italy at Dior’s ateliers, the shoe featured a slightly larger Swoosh inlaid with Dior’s signature canvas and finished with handwork usually reserved for luxury purses. A high-top and low-top version were made in an extremely limited run, and originally retailed for over $2,000. It didn’t take long for resell prices to rise to significantly more than that. This particular collaboration reflected how far sneaker culture had come—the Air Dior was the ultimate status symbol for any sneakerhead, so much so that during the 2020 inauguration of President Joe Biden, so many eyes went to the feet of Nikolas Ajagu, the husband of Kamala Harris’s niece Meena, who not only managed to secure a pair, but wore them to the occasion. Instead of being derided for wearing sneakers to such a high-profile event, Ajagu was actually lauded for it. After all, if you had the world’s most wanted pair of kicks, who wouldn’t proudly wear them to a once-in-a-lifetime celebration?
If there’s one person who would have understood the importance of wearing Jordans to a presidential inauguration, it was the late, great Virgil Abloh, who succeeded Kim Jones as artistic director of Louis Vuitton’s menswear. Abloh not only built on the collaborative codes established by Marc Jacobs and Kim Jones, he took them to unparalleled heights, cut short only by his unfortunate, untimely death on November 28, 2001. Abloh’s journey from a Chicago kid with big dreams to one of the most influential creatives of his generation is a testament to the power of innovation, collaboration, and authenticity. His work spanned fashion, art, music, and design, redefining the boundaries of what a designer could be and what streetwear could represent—and he did it all in a way that never compromised his distinct sense of individuality.
From his early days working with Kanye West to becoming the first Black artistic director at Louis Vuitton, Abloh’s career was a masterclass in defying norms, empowering marginalized communities, and reshaping cultural narratives. Born in Rockford, Illinois to Ghanaian immigrant parents, Abloh’s father worked for a paint company, and his mother was a seamstress who taught him the basics of sewing—a skill that would eventually factor heavily into his career. Abloh’s childhood was steeped in an appreciation for craft and creativity, but his academic path initially revolved around architecture.
Abloh’s career was a masterclass in defying norms, empowering marginalized communities, and reshaping cultural narratives.
He earned a degree in civil engineering from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 2002 before pursuing a master’s in architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology. The campus, designed by Mies van der Rohe, exposed him to modernist principles like “form follows function.” His architectural background was evident throughout his career, as he had a way of framing his work within a structure. He operated by a series of self-set codes, hacks, and shortcuts as a means of promoting efficiency, reflected in the prolific amount of work he was able to produce. Indeed, it could be said that he designed “structures” rather than specific objects, and those structures could be garments, sneakers, furniture, or cultural movements.
Virgil Abloh’s creative trajectory changed forever when he met Kanye West in 2002. In 2009, the two began an internship at Fendi. Even though West already had an established career as one of the most influential musicians of the modern era, it was an endeavor he wanted to honestly pursue, and Abloh was there as his right-hand man. Soon after, Abloh became the architect of Kanye West’s visual and cultural empire, overseeing everything from album art, stage design, merchandise, and collaborations.
One of their most iconic projects was the album cover for the 2011 album Watch the Throne, designed with former Givenchy creative director Riccardo Tisci. The intricate, gold-embossed design symbolized the merging of art, music, and luxury, earning a Grammy nomination for Best Recording Package. They followed that up with another boundary-breaking collaboration—two capsule collections with French apparel brand A.P.C. Blending the brand’s penchant for minimal essentials with West’s elevated sensibilities, the partnership subverted expectations through its keen mix of streetwear codes like militaria and workwear and high fashion tastes like the perfect T-shirt. Despite commanding retail prices slightly higher than most streetwear consumers would expect (a plain white T-shirt retailed for $120), the line not only dominated the media landscape, it instantly sold out, creating a frenzy as eager shoppers lined up outside A.P.C. stores, something the brand had only experienced when it had released hotly anticipated collaborations with Nike.
Abloh’s contributions extended beyond aesthetics; he helped turn merchandise into a legitimate extension of an artist’s brand, setting the stage for an era where tour merch drops felt as exciting as a Supreme release day. From the Yeezus tour to The Life of Pablo, Abloh and West treated tour merch as an extension of the artist’s vision, elevating it from a throwaway souvenir to a cultural artifact. The Life of Pablo pop-up shops, which appeared in cities worldwide, showcased Abloh’s ability to turn ephemeral moments into global phenomena. While a lot of that creative energy also was tied to West’s cult of personality, Abloh’s contributions became more evident when he achieved similar success while working with Houston artist Travis Scott, whose rowdy shows were known for turning any venue into a mosh pit. This multidisciplinary ethos became a hallmark of Abloh’s career, as he seamlessly navigated between industries and elevated street culture to new heights.
Abloh’s philosophy of collaboration and inclusivity paved the way for a new generation of creatives.
In 2012, Abloh launched Off-White, a Milan-based fashion label that quickly became a cultural juggernaut. The brand’s name referenced the “gray area” between black and white—that is, between high fashion and streetwear. Off-White’s signature design elements, including quotation marks, zip ties, and industrial text, became instantly recognizable and deeply influential. Off-White wasn’t just about clothes; it was about creating a language. Each piece told a story, whether through its typography, its graphic references, or its playful subversion of luxury fashion norms. In 2015, Off-White became a finalist for the LVMH Prize, solidifying its place in the fashion world and marking Abloh as a designer to watch.
Virgil Abloh’s 2017 collaboration with Nike, titled “The Ten,” deconstructed ten of Nike’s most iconic silhouettes, including the Air Jordan 1, Air Max 90, and Converse Chuck Taylor, infusing them with Abloh’s signature aesthetic. Exposed stitching, sans serif typefaces, Abloh’s signature quotation marks, and zip ties turned each sneaker into a statement piece. This partnership wasn’t just about sneakers; it was about storytelling as a form of reinvention, and empowering the sneaker community to see everyday objects as canvases for creativity. Each shoe offered a fresh glimpse into Abloh’s process and invited the wearer to become part of the narrative. The project didn’t just feel like a collaboration between Nike and Abloh but also between the designer and his audience. The impact of The Ten was seismic. It redefined what a sneaker collaboration could be, inspiring countless imitators and solidifying Abloh’s status as a cultural innovator. It also transformed how sneakers were perceived within fashion.
In 2018, Virgil Abloh made history as the first Black artistic director of Louis Vuitton’s menswear division. His appointment was groundbreaking not only in terms of inclusivity and representation, but also for what it symbolized: the formal recognition of streetwear’s influence on luxury fashion.. Under Abloh’s direction, Louis Vuitton blazed a new path, embracing a more inclusive, youth-driven vision. He incorporated elements of his Off-White aesthetic, from bold graphics to playful typography, all while respecting the brand’s storied heritage.
Take for example Abloh’s debut collection for Louis Vuitton, which was an ecstatic celebration of diversity and creativity. The show featured a diverse cast of models who walked a rainbow-colored runway wearing pieces that blended Vuitton’s sophistication with Abloh’s contemporary sensibilities. The collection included everything from oversized monogrammed coats, reflective interpretations of Vuitton’s leather goods, and covetable sneakers paying homage to tried-and-true sportswear silhouettes, showcasing Abloh’s ability to honor tradition while pushing boundaries.
The show was more than a presentation—it was a moment of cultural reckoning. It demonstrated that luxury fashion could be inclusive and forward-thinking, and it positioned Louis Vuitton as a leader in a new era of creativity. Under Abloh’s leadership, Louis Vuitton embraced collaborations that bridged cultures and industries. In 2020, Abloh debuted a capsule collection with NIGO called LV2, elevating the BAPE founder’s design codes to the level of a French luxury house. Similar to how Kim Jones gave Shawn Stüssy the opportunity to create the line he always dreamed of, LV2 was a celebration of both Japanese streetwear and French luxury. What made Abloh so great is that he didn’t just appreciate NIGO’s work, but was a true fan of his career. NIGO’s ability to make camouflage Pepsi cans and candy-colored patent leather sneakers covetable was something that could easily translate to a label like Louis Vuitton—and Abloh was the conduit that finally gave him the platform. Connecting the threads between streetwear’s past and present, the collection allowed Abloh to write a new chapter for its future. It wasn’t long until NIGO himself was brought into the LVMH fold as the artistic director KENZO. Abloh also expanded Vuitton’s previous stake in the skate world with Supreme by signing skateboarder Lucien Clarke to the luxury label—another first—and even gave him his own signature shoe called “A View,” a nearly-$1,200 sneaker meant to be worn down through rigorous hours of skating. From legitimizing street culture legends in the world of luxury to bringing skateboarding to the highest echelon of fashion in a real way, each project added a new layer to Louis Vuitton’s narrative, reinforcing its relevance in a rapidly changing cultural landscape.
While Kim Jones broke the mold of sportswear and luxury collaborations with the Dior Air Jordan, Abloh took the concept and made it his own through an expansive collaboration between Nike and Louis Vuitton in 2022. Taking it back to the roots of sneaker culture, he reimagined the iconic Air Force 1 shoe in multiple colorways, designing nearly 50 pairs that were meant to emulate the ubiquity of popular sneaker retailers like Foot Locker. The idea was to reinterpret the familiar sight of a retail sneaker wall—something commonly seen on popular YouTube series like Complex’s “Sneaker Shopping”—and putting it in the context of a luxury house.
The range and breadth of the offering had Abloh’s fingerprints all over it. Replacing his iconic zip ties with leather LV luggage tags, emblazoning the industrial “AIR” text on the sole, and even including colorways that referenced Canal Street bootlegs and obscure parodies like Ari “Sal” Forman’s Newport Cigarette-inspired “Ari Menthol 10s,” every single shoe was a chapter about the rich culture of sneakers and streetwear. And by launching the partnership through a series of global activations and pop-ups, the immersive experience allowed consumers to be part of the excitement, regardless of their ability to afford the expensive pairs, which retailed between $2,750 to $3,450.
Abloh’s work wasn’t just about fashion—it was about creating opportunities. Through initiatives like his “Post-Modern” Scholarship Fund, he supported Black students pursuing careers in fashion and design. His philosophy of collaboration and inclusivity paved the way for a new generation of creatives to follow in his footsteps. The fund raised over $1 million in its first year, reflecting Abloh’s commitment to creating opportunities for underrepresented voices in the industry. This ethos of mentorship extended to his collaborations as well. Abloh frequently worked with emerging designers and creatives, using his platform to amplify their voices.
Virgil Abloh’s career was a testament to the power of collaboration to communicate larger ideas about how he wanted to see the world. He wasn’t confined to fashion alone—his work spanned furniture design, automobiles, beverages, and more. Abloh’s collaborations weren’t just partnerships; they were cultural moments that reframed how brands and creatives could interact, expanding the aperture of what a so-called “designer” could achieve. These projects underscored Abloh’s belief that design is universal. Whether it was a sneaker, a handbag, or a water bottle, he approached each medium with the same level of intention and innovation, proving that no object was too small or insignificant to be elevated through design.
This article is an excerpt from The Incomplete Vol. 2: A Guide to Creative Collaborations, produced in partnership with gestalten and available on Highsnobiety.com and the Highsnobiety iOS app.
