The designer, who died aged 41, was so generous with his success, making sure to nurture young black talent
When I walked into the barbershop today, my barber and I immediately spoke about Virgil Abloh’s passing, and the shock we felt. As he faded my hair, he told me that the American designer had been one of the few whose work he followed, and that the first designer item he purchased was a pair off Abloh’s Off-White trainers. This is by no means a rare story: so many young black people identified with Abloh. In losing him, we have lost a real titan of black creativity, whose influence is felt in every corner – from streetwear kids browsing designs on London estates to the catwalks of Milan, Paris and Tokyo.
You have to question why Abloh’s position as a black man at the top of the fashion industry, which draws so intensely from black history and culture, is so rare. But it’s a position that Abloh treated with humility, and a real sense of duty towards young black creatives. He set out to nurture the talent of the future himself: to ensure that the most senior positions in fashion and creativity would not be restricted to just one or two black visionaries.
Jason Okundaye is a London-based writer and researcher
