Sustainability has risen to be the new sexy in the fashion industry. Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg
Meeting the demands of increasingly environmentally-conscious shoppers, against the backdrop of studies having shown it as one of the worst polluters, the fashion industry is embracing sustainability as its new sexy fashion.
In a sign that the issue is no longer just an afterthought, the topic was a key theme at this year’s WWD Apparel + Retail CEO Summit that concluded Wednesday in New York. The two-day event gathered some 300 top industry executives from CEOs of Macy’s and Kohl’s to luxury brands Paul Smith and Ermenegildo Zegna.
“Five years ago customers only care about if they like the product,” said designer Eileen Fisher of her namesake company. “Now they care about whether (their purchase) makes a difference....We need to move the flow of money to sustainable business….We are thinking about 'what are the other ways we can make money that don't require making new stuff.”
The brand, certified as B-Corp. since 2015, last year opened its first company-owned factory in Irvington, NY to give new life to its old and damaged clothes it takes back from customers and turns some into new limited edition pieces for sale.
“Our customers have an appetite to engage with the brand outside shopping,” said Libby Wadle, president of J. Crew-owned hip sister brand Madewell. “Our customers have an appetite to engage with the brand outside shopping.”
About 10% of Madewell’s jeans sales are now tied to its denim recycling program, which involving Madewell taking used denim and recycle it into house installation, she said.
Yael Aflalo, ceo and founder of Reformation, known for its sustainably-sourced apparel and business operation, said the brand has seen increased social-media “engagement on sustainability." The company's pitch on sustainability also has helped it attract talent, she said.
“A good 50% or more coming to work for us because they like our mission,” she said.
According to this year’s Pulse of the Fashion Industry Report published by Global Fashion Agenda and The Boston Consulting Group, 52% of fashion industry executives polled in its study said “sustainability targets acted as a guiding principle for nearly every strategic decision they made,” up 18 percentage points from last year. The study also showed an increased sustainability focus does translate to a positive impact on profit.
Besides the discussion on sustainability, not surprisingly, attracting traffic and new customers was also a key topic at the WWD event as many traditional brick-and-mortar retailers and brands seek new partnerships and other reinventions.
In an initiative that first began last year, Kohl’s, for instance, has expanded to about 100 stores where Amazon customers can return their Amazon-bought items to Kohl’s to be shipped back for free.
“Customers love the experience,” said Kohl’s CEO Michelle Gass. “It’s an opportunity to show we are willing to take a risk and make a bet.”
Still, she acknowledged while the move is driving traffic, “it has to convert enough into sales” for Kohl’s, adding this holiday will serve as a good barometer of that. Kohl’s is also looking at downsizing its store size of an average of about 90,000 square feet to about 60,000 with the remaining space to be leased to fitness centers or other retailers.
“We want to bring a neighbor to help us bring traffic,” Gass said.
For its part, Macy’s will be “much more aggressive” in its lease models and feature restaurants and other categories that “revolve around the way customers live and shop” to drive traffic, Chairman and CEO Jeff Gennette said.
Macy’s has also taken a stake in Silicon Valley tech-retailer startup b8ta, which features different online upstart brands as well as major labels Sony in out-of-box and interactive settings for consumers to see and try. Macy's this year also bought Story, famous for its New York shop that regularly features different brands and themes that attract shoppers. Story’s founder Rachel Shechtman has been named Macy’s “brand experience officer” and is tasked with helping to replicate at Macy’s relevant Story-like in-store experience.
The point of moves behind the likes of Story or b8ta “is to acquire new customers,” Gennette said.
A cat who wandered onto the runway during a fashion show in Turkey managed to upstage the models themselves.
A video taken at Istanbul’s Esmod International Fashion Show shows the nonchalant feline grooming itself before strutting down the catwalk and playfully lashing out at a model trying to steal its thunder.
Viewers were clearly impressed with the cat’s commitment to crashing the show. “Cat on a catwalk,” Twitter user Rita Panahi captioned the hilarious clip. “Best bit is when it struts down the runway & tries to scratch a model. Peak catting.”
However, although the cat was the day’s star, its appearance was apparently not a staged stunt. “Everybody was in shock,” fashion designer Göksen Hakkı Ali told The Dodo.
In times of strife and struggle, Russia has always placed its biggest trust in human resources. “We’re rich in minerals and minds,” goes an old saying. While the population of the world’s largest (by territory) nation has steadily declined since independence in 1991, recent years have marked a potential reversal of fortunes with 0.05% growth recorded in 2017. The government aims to prevent the dreaded brain drain, but it’s the creative industries that often are the most flexible to adapt to new challenges.
One of Russia's leading fashion designers Igor Gulyaev closed MBFW Russia with a blockbuster show inclusive of his Insta-famous cat!Courtesy of MBFW Russia
Mercedes Benz Fashion Week Russia just took place in Moscow in October 13-17. Its Fashion Futurum program is an example of successful strategic support for emergent talent within a specific economic sector. Last year, the organizing committee co-launched FashionNet as part of the National Technology Initiative to boost domestic apparel market coverage up to 70% by 2035. While all eyes were on the fashion capital’s brightest stars Yasya Minochkina, Pirosmani, Artem Shumov, Alena Akhmadullina and Igor Gulyaev, we decided to spend time with the participants of the Fashion Futurum Accelerator, a program that helps promising designers set up a business from scratch. These future stars spend the past couple months in an intense mentorship program in Moscow working alongside established brand managers, buyers, investors and consultants to perfect their vision and set up sustainable production and retail channels. In between the shows, I asked them what participation in the Accelerator meant for them as they prepared to develop and present their full debut collections next season as part of the platform.
“Participating in Fashion Futurum, I had a chance to look at my brand from a different point of view and with the help of mentors choose the right vector of development. It was an important event, because I will be supported after the project and that gives me strength and confidence to try new ideas!”
Design by Ksenia GertsCourtesy of Fashion Futurum
… Based in St. Petersburg, this label is getting attention for its synthesis of Russian architectural and artistic heritage with latest smart couture trends. Last year the collection was inspired by and presented at the Ural Industrial Biennial of Contemporary Art in Ekaterinburg.
“The Accelerator gave us new knowledge and opportunities. It broadened our minds. It offered a way to see ourselves as relevant in the existing world of fashion. It was just in time for our relaunch and we have already implemented some changes in our business. My brand will never be the same!”
Product line sheet by Varvara ZeninaCourtesy of Fashion Futurum
… Billed as the first successful Russian brand popularizing Slavic design heritage for the hipster generation, the line includes several traditional types of shirts and dresses retailored for the Millennial mindset. It reflects growing interest in indigenous Russian folklore and crafts.
Designer Alena Rusakova for Laboratory of Innovative Design:
“After 25 years of designing uniforms, I became interested in smartwear for people with limited mobility. Bringing AbilityLife to Moscow gives me a chance to align it with global trends and tech knowhow in this exclusive segment. Moving forward, I am confident in inclusive fashion design in Russian.”
Design by Alena RusakovaCourtesy of Fashion Futurum
Rusakova has experience in designing hyper-functional garments for special projects with MTC, Coca Cola and other corporate giants.
“Fashion Futurum for me is like diving deep into the ocean, very rapid growth, inspiring communication, wise mentors, new friends, a priceless experience.”
Design by Alisa FilichkinaCourtesy of Fashion Futurum
Coming from fashion styling, Filichkina had decided to take a leap of faith into bringing her bright vision to life.
“My story here is one of happy destruction. Bye, the world of creativity. Hello, world of numbers. I knew that enthusiasm was not enough to compensate for blank spaces where business knowledge should be. This was six months of crushing fears and misconceptions. In the end, the puzzle of the future finally got pieced together. But the most important outcome is the sense of community among peers: brands of different status sharing experiences and collectively coming up with solutions.”
… Lagina’s brand ExoMeso is a start-up specializing in making clothes from recycled materials: a promising market trajectory as more consumers are demanding eco-conscious choices!
“First of all, Fashion Futurum is team energy that cleared my naivete and fantasies about my brand. Of course, there will be many obstacles ahead, but I will not repeat any mistakes now that I know how to avoid them. I finally have a strategy and it feels like a whole new me!”
… You may not think of Russia as a beach resort destination, but you might consider this up-and-coming brand for your next swimwear shopping spree. It is quickly becoming the go-to option for Russian fashionistas!
“Fashion Futurum is an opportunity to make a giant leap from a craftsman-designer to a designer-businessperson who thinks innovatively on a larger scale. It gives me the ability to integrate the experience of the past into a better-quality product without losing artistic integrity. Together, we make Russian fashion industry better and better.”
… Nizovtsova produces clothes and accessories for those invested in the labor-of-love process of creating their personal mythology. The brand also collaborates with influencers on fashion films and a blogging community.
“Participation in FF means for me the great possibility to get connections and practical knowledge. Before, I've tried reading all the books about developing your own way as a fashion brand. It felt a bit like running in the darkness. Now I have a much better vision of how this fantastically resourceful community works!”
… Kononovich specializes in handmade brooches stylized as historical badges of honor. At the base of each such “medal” is a unique vintage button which the designer sources from flee-markets all over the world.
Time will tell how these designers fair in a highly competitive Moscow marketplace. Mercedes Benz Fashion Week Russia program has about 100 shows a season. Alexander Shumsky, president of Russian Fashion Council and Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Russia, estimates that 800-1000 smaller domestic niche brands enter the market every year.
“The problem is that all of them have a broken vision of the industry. Fashion education system is designed for traditional supply chain, not for a new army of creative minds. We are working hard to change it in Russia and next year we are going to expand Fashion Futurum format to key regions, as well. Today is always about new talents.”
However, oversaturation and expectations burnout are realistic detrimental factors as well. Just ask designer Jean Rudoff of Lumiere Garson who was selected last year for the FashionNet pilot mentorship program. His premier showcase this year featured a sweatshirt that read 'Tired of Fashion' on its sleeve. Well, honesty is the best policy!
LONDON, United Kingdom — Scaring Is Caring, Boohoo reminded its shoppers. Bow Down Witches, said Pretty Little Thing. This year, Gen Z’s favourite shopping destinations are telling brand fans “how to look hot” for Halloween.
Halloween costumes have long been under the purview of discount stores and speciality boutiques, which lure shoppers in with elaborate fancy dress ensembles and head-to-toe themed looks. But fashion retailers are increasingly getting in on the action.
Halloween spending in the US hit $9.1 billion last year, according to the National Retail Federation. In addition, the body found consumers plan to spend $3.2 billion on costumes this year, purchased by 68 percent of Halloween shoppers. Mintel forecasts that consumers in the UK will spend £419 million on the holiday this year, up 5 percent from £400 million in 2017.
A look from Boohoo's Halloween offering | Source: Boohoo
For the social-media savvy millennial and Gen Z generations in particular, the Halloween holiday has created a great “Instagram opportunity.” However, while the younger demographic want to dress up, they also aren’t keen to splash too much cash on a fancy dress outfit that they’ll never wear again. Indeed, market intelligence agency Mintel found that 75 percent of Halloween shoppers in the UK said they want to be able to reuse their Halloween costumes and decorations.
“Instagram pushes people towards fashion brands because they want something that’s going to be very flattering, that they will be able to wear again, that is super cheap,” said Florence Allday, an analyst at Euromonitor International.
In recent years, fast fashion retailers popular with young shoppers, from Forever 21 and Asos to Boohoo and Pretty Little Thing, have been ramping up their participation in the holiday, crafting dedicated campaigns that begin as early as mid-September that show shoppers how to style fashion items — which can later be integrated into their regular wardrobes — into costumes.
Product offerings will often include a range of Halloween-themed accessories, such as cat ears or oversized crucifix-style earrings, paired with everyday clothing items or “going out” pieces, such as a black lace bodycon dress (witch), a red trouser-bandeau combo (devil) or black faux-leather leggings (vampire).
“Our approach to Halloween is all about variety and not being too literal,” said a representative for Nasty Gal.
Instagram pushes people towards fashion brands. They want something they will be able to wear again, that is super cheap.
Unlike some third-party sellers on Amazon or independent costume shops, fashion retailers like Asos and Boohoo have the advantage of being able to offer super-fast delivery at an affordable price and an easy returns process, services younger shoppers have come to expect when purchasing fashion. In addition, these retailers provide a broad range of sizes. Nasty Gal’s £20 “No-Body's Fool Skeleton Jumpsuit” comes in sizes UK 4 or US 0 to UK 22 or US 18.
At present, fashion retailers’ Halloween costume market share is pretty slim. The National Retail Federation said that this year they expect 45 percent of US shoppers will visit discount stores, while 35 percent will go to a specialty Halloween store or costume store when buying costumes and other Halloween supplies. In the UK, Mintel found that last year 6 percent of UK shoppers bought their costumes from a fashion retailer — but this figure went up to 11 percent within the 16-to-34 age bracket.
There’s scope for retailers to further capitalise on the Halloween opportunity in the future, which Chana Baram, retail analyst at Mintel, says is a big one. “If you’re seeing [emails or Instagram posts about Halloween outfits] from your favourite brand, you might be more inclined to look at it rather than go elsewhere. People are buying into a lifestyle with that. You shop where you know. And that’s why this is a really good opportunity [for fashion retailers].”
Every semester since arriving at Barnard, Lyons has searched the word “fashion” in the course directory, drawing limited results time and time again. The only class open for enrollment this semester was Culture of Italian Fashion, taught by Barbara Faedda, associate director of the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies. This was her first opportunity to take a fashion course at Columbia, and Lyons eagerly registered for it. The inflection of her voice as she recounts a salient moment from Faeda’s first lecture is both unwavering and utterly enthusiastic. “For the longest time, people associated earthly things with being less important and frivolous, things associated with the body rather than the mind. That kind of trickled into academia,” Lyons recalls. “The history of clothes is so underdeveloped, especially at large research institutions.”
Cardi B Wants to Rival Chanel & Gucci With New Clothing Line
Cardi B's new collaboration is for women of all ages and sizes that was to drip in style (on a budget).
Over the years, the "Money" rapper's style has been a combination of awing, designer fashion (See: Her back-to-back outfits from Paris Fashion Week) and an occasional Fashion Nova fit. She's the queen of mixing high and low fashion. Yet, she has consistently relied on the e-commerce site for curve-hugging styles (most that cost less than $50) to pair with her diamonds, designer shoes and long, sparkling nails.
Now, the New York-born entertainer is taking her partnership with the brand to the next level, making it easier for every woman to mix high and low. Or, better yet, she's helping consumers shop for budget-friendly pieces that make them look like a million dollars.
"I want people to be like ‘Is that Chanel? Is that Gucci? Oh, it's Fashion Nova—oh okay,'" she told E! News host Justin Sylvester.
The full Cardi B x Fashion Nova collection includes about 80 pieces, ranging from suiting to dresses to outerwear. The brand announced today that the line takes influence from the star and "the emerging global cultural icons of the late '80s and early '90s," so you can expect bright hues, latex and faux fur for ultra-sexy styles.
"One day if I want to dress really raunchy, if I want to show my body, I feel like I can," Cardi revealed regarding her fashion after having her first baby with Offset, Kulture Kiari Cephus. This collection will allow her to do that.
Her favorite pieces in the collection, however, are the jackets: "I love jackets," she stated. "I was very specific on what type of material I wanted...I also love this dress right here. It's almost like a jacket, but it's really a dress. You might use it as a jacket. You could wear with jeans, or you could cut it."
However, like Cardivenom, the collection will include very tailored styles and what the brand is calling "innovation and newness in fashion denim." There are office-ready looks with trousers, suiting and blouses that will make you look like a music industry boss. And, if you have a more casual office setting, they're broadening their denim offerings with wide-leg, flare and trouser-inspired silhouettes, creating more sophisticated casual outfits.
The best part: Most items will cost approximately $40, although there are a few unique luxury items that will cost more.
Fashion Nova x Cardi B launches November 15th exclusively on fashionnova.com.
Things like “influence” and importance are watery concepts. But it’s easy to see that the Milan-based fashion brand Off-White has 5.4 million Instagram followers and that founder Virgil Abloh has 3.1 million. It’s easy to see that Rihanna wears these clothes, and that the Nike Air Prestos designed by Abloh and released this summer were mentioned more than 250,000 times on social media and were so hard to buy that they are now available on resale apps at markups of around 450 percent.
The brand was founded in 2012, and its popularity isn’t new, but it’s now reaching heights that, to the idle but curious fashion observer, may be confounding. Its guiding principle is just “everything in quotes,” as in, “everything is ironic and also the main recognizable design element on the clothes is chunky quotation marks.” A black dress with the words “Little Black Dress” written on it, in quotes. A shoelace on a $700 pair of sneakers with the word “Shoelaces” written on it, in quotes. A scarf with “scarf” written on it in quotes.
As perplexing as it was when kids lined up and paid $1,000-plus to buy a literal brick released by Supreme two years ago, at least it was clear that it was in some ways a joke. Off-White isn’t a joke. It’s extremely expensive streetwear — primarily T-shirts and hoodies and sneakers — beloved by the teenagers of Reddit, the rich club kids of New York and Milan, the pop stars and rappers in every magazine and on every social media feed, and much of the high-fashion elite, including Abloh’s day-one fan Marc Jacobs. Also, Julia Roberts.
It is not at all a challenge to find people who will say Abloh is leading a cult of personality dependent on teens who don’t know better, that his undeniable historical significance as the most prolific designer of his generation is at odds with his seeming disinterest in giving anyone a good reason to care. Often, at his most earnest, he says things like, “We’re lucky to have a public that is now prime to support brands. In essence, we’re all independent brands and retailers.”
It’s rare that the question “what’s the deal?” feels fair or interesting, but, uh, what’s the deal?
To answer that question, we have to go back to 2002. That was the year that Virgil Abloh — the Illinois-raised then-22-year-old son of two Ghanaian immigrants (his mother was a seamstress) — graduated from the civil engineering program at the University of Wisconsin Madison. It was also the year Abloh met Kanye West and started designing his merchandise and album art.
At the same time, Abloh worked on a master’s degree in architecture, which he received from the Illinois Institute of Technology in 2006. (This should demonstrate two of his more notable qualities, which are that he is smart and has seemingly boundless energy.)
West and Abloh interned together at Fendi in the summer of 2009, and have said they were allowed to do basically nothing but did become better, more intimate friends. Abloh officially took on the title of West’s “creative director” in 2010. (That alone makes him a trendsetter: Every rapper has a creative director now, and Rihanna has approximately 14.) Abloh’s first big public project with West was art direction for West’s joint album with Jay-Z, Watch the Throne, which pulled him into the broader hip-hop social and commercial circle.
In 2012, Abloh opened a boutique called Pyrex Vision, centered on a concept that went viral because it was basically a (highly enviable, just-clever-enough) scam: buying simple, cheap Champion basics and super-discounted pieces of Ralph Lauren dead stock, then screen-printing his own super-simple graphics on top of them and selling them for hundreds of dollars. It was buzzy! It was controversial! It involved A$AP Rocky!
The next year, Abloh founded his label Off-White. He centered the design aesthetic on diagonal lines and the iconography of American cities: White arrows. Plain labels. Industrial packaging with a signature zip tie. High-end fabrics and familiar streetwear shapes. From there, it was off to the races: The first Off-White womenswear line debuted at Paris Fashion Week in 2014 and was selected as a finalist for the coveted LVMH Prize, which got Abloh into rooms with all the top buyers and designers and people connectors in the infamously old, infamously rich, and infamously white industry. They loved it!
In 2017, Off-White partnered with Nike to redesign 10 of the company’s best-selling and classic styles. There are basically no words for how popular and how difficult to purchase this line of sneakers has been. Though the starting price points were around $200, most available pairs seemed to end up in the hands of celebrities, and resale prices now hover north of $1,000.
Then in 2018, Abloh was named the artistic director of Louis Vuitton’s menswear — call it a coup or call it a triumph, it was above all a thing that was written about by every fashion or business publication you can name and discussed by every public figure who had ever, for any reason, had anything to do with expensive clothes. Rihanna came to his Paris debut; Playboi Carti and Kid Cudi were models in it.
Three months later, Abloh debuted a Nike collection designed specifically for Serena Williams, and here is an incomplete list of the other collaborations he completed and sold in the same 12 months: Champion, Le Bon Marche, Selfridges, SSENSE, KM20, TheDoubleF, Gore-Tex, Browns, Timberland, Burton, Jimmy Choo, Chrome Hearts, Vivendii, Rimowa, Hirshleifers, Ikea, Kith, Equinox, A-Cold-Wall, Burton, Grog, and Sunglass Hut.
For a collaboration with Hiroshi Fujiwara, Abloh designed a money clip that looks like a credit card. “Don’t let Zara and Uniqlo educate you on the price of a garment because that’s not fashion,” he once said. “That’s like McDonald’s. Your health is tied to that — a 99-cent nugget.” He has also collaborated with McDonald’s.
Virgil and Rihanna in Paris.Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images
Off-White is the hottest brand in the world, according to the quarterly ranking released by the fashion and e-commerce platform Lyst.
It climbed 33 places in Lyst’s ranking in the last year, and surpassed legacy luxury fashion houses like Gucci and Balenciaga for the first time this quarter. This first-place ranking should be taken with a grain of salt, as Off-White isn’t a publicly traded company and we know absolutely nothing about its revenue (we do know Gucci and Balenciaga have seen “stellar” growth this year). Plus, the methodology of the Lyst index relies heavily on opaque sources: its own search, browsing, and purchase data, social media “engagement statistics,” and “sentiment analysis.” It also incorporates Google Search data, which is publicly available, but it’s not clear how that’s weighted in this secret, sort of suspiciously complicated algorithm.
Regardless of methodology, the index points us in the direction of the obvious: “Luxury” today is fancy streetwear. Streetwear has been a boon to the $300 billion global high-end fashion industry, and helped it grow an estimated 5 percent in 2017.
Last October, Federica Levato, a partner at the marketing consultancy Bain & Company, told Business of Fashion, “Customers are becoming younger, and that is very good for the mid- and longer-term survival of this industry.” She continued: “There is a big market of €2.5 million for luxury T-shirts, for example, that is growing very fast. And a half-a-billion-euro market for rubber sliders, which is very unusual in this market.”
This marriage of wealth and accessibility is a cornerstone of Abloh’s creative pursuits and his business, and he discussed his Louis Vuitton appointment with CNBC earlier this month, saying, “My baseline consumer can sometimes be 12 years old, and, you know, that is an incredible task, but I like the challenge of translating a brand that could be 100 years old to someone who’s 12. I specialize in that.”
Virgil and Kendall Jenner at the Met Gala.Noam Galai/Getty Images
In that conversation, he was also referring to the challenge of making an Off-White suitcase in collaboration with the 120-year-old German luxury luggage brand Rimowa (majority-owned by LMVH, which paid $716 million for an 80 percent stake in 2016). That suitcase — priced at $1,700 — was the most popular item among the teenagers who flocked to Hypebeast’s first New York streetwear festival this October.
Abloh is benefiting from larger trends, such as the Instagram-driven return of logos, hip-hop’s ascendancy to be the dominant form of American popular music, and the rise of mass-produced “algorithmic” style — but he’s also spurring them, and capitalizing on them more robustly and quickly than anyone else.
Nike moved up five spots in Lyst’s brand index this year too, and the Off-White x Nike Air Presto was the “hottest” item of the year — ranked higher than West’s new Yeezy Boosts, or Balenciaga’s tongue-in-cheek, trend-disfiguring Triple S sneakers. The company reported a year-over-year revenue of 6 percent for 2018, bringing in $36.4 billion.
Abloh is valuable to them because he sits at the intersection of art and commerce and popular culture: At the Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills this fall, you could go see 35 sculptures created in collaboration by Abloh and Japanese fine artist Takashi Murakami. Before the exhibit closed, Drake bought one of them. During a lecture at Columbia University last February, Abloh compared his cover art for Kanye West’s Yeezus to the Coca-Cola can, saying, “Being able to brand content that shapes a generation is not a small thing.”
There is just nobody who understands our modern word salad better.
The brand is not without controversy. Abloh’s understanding of what is good and beautiful and important seems to be informed by what creates an impact, not necessarily by any consistent or discernible moral or intellectual worldview.
He’s a complicated hero to have: Last summer, he worked with the extremely famous socially conscious conceptual artist Jenny Holzer to create a line of pro-immigration and anti-neo-nationalism statement pieces, and that winter, he designed T-shirts for Planned Parenthood.
At the same time, he still stands by stylist Ian Connor, a hip-hop staple who has been accused of rape more than 20 times. In a 2017 Wprofile that declared Abloh “King of Social Media Superinfluencers,” he named Connor as part of “inner circle,” alongside A$AP Mob’s creative director A$AP Bari, who has also been accused of sexual assault (video evidence leaked on Reddit just before he was arrested) and with whom Nike cut ties last year.
And when it comes to the actual designs, Abloh’s “everything in quotes” tagline is a rallying cry for ironic detachment. But he can also be sincere: “We were a generation that was interested in fashion and weren’t supposed to be there,” he told W when asked about becoming the first black man to design his own line at Louis Vuitton, which has been around for 165 years.
What he is doing is simultaneously important and easy to pick apart. When Abloh became the design director of Louis Vuitton menswear, K. Austin Collins wrote for Vanity Fair that the match made more sense than it seemed: “Off-White’s signature diagonal stripes and ironic quotation marks are, for hypebeasts and the star-obsessed, as coded and class-aware as interlocking L.V. monograms are to another generation.”
Collins also pointed out that the brand has “a youthful folly, a crude sense of pop weirdness,” and acknowledged that “detractors claim its fraudulence.” Off-White has plenty of these detractors.
For one, there are those who believe the foundation of Off-White is stolen ideas: In July, the Norwegian sportswear brand Helly Hansen filed a trademark infringement and unfair competition suit in Illinois federal court, accusing Abloh of ripping off its logo in many of his designs.
Even before that, Diet Prada, the popular Instagram account known for semi-accurately calling out rip-offs in the fashion industry, pointed out that the Off-White logo was nearly identical to a 1965 Glasgow airport design created by a famous UK design group. It found a photo of Abloh in his office, with a copy of a modernist design book that had an entry about the logo in question, and also accused him of plagiarizing Calvin Klein’s Raf Simons and the Japanese label Anrealage.
Abloh has said it takes him 10 minutes to come up with many of his designs. He’s also said he wants to help Apple design the next iPhone. His aesthetic interests are simplicity and efficiency, his commercial interests are what could be called economically avant-garde — dramatic, cartoonish, garish markups of basic items marketed primarily to kids, by celebrities, turning unattainability into a sport and pastime. When he introduced Off-White’s “For All” diffusion line, it included four T-shirts and four hoodies that could only be purchased in brick-and-mortar stores in major cities, ranging in price from $95 to $170.
Controversy, though, of course, is conversation. And conversation is brand awareness. And boy, are the boys of Reddit ever aware of Off-White. There are only 2,000 members of the Off-White specific subreddit, but the 807,000 readers of the primary streetwear subreddit discuss it constantly.
They don’t all love it. Many of them are lukewarm. Many of them openly hate it! Many say it’s “aesthetically good stuff” but that they can’t get behind the “disingenuous” message of the brand.
“Maybe Virgil is one of the greatest designers of our generation or maybe he’s just best friends with Kanye,” one user writes. “I like to think it’s somewhere in the middle.” Abloh represents a highly American tale of improbable work-driven success and highly probable celebrity-proximity, luck-driven success.
Kid Cudi in Louis Vuitton’s spring/summer 2019 runway show.Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images
Alex Castro, an illustrator at The Verge (and of this article!) and a notably cool person, is my last best hope to understand the brand’s dominance, since even the hypebeasts are capable of openly questioning it. “All of the power of Off-White is in the quotation marks,” he says. Then he details a very complicated emotional process, reacting to a rug that Abloh designed that says “Keep Off” on it:
It seems dumb at first glance, and then you end up thinking about the humor in it, and then you end up thinking about society and the rules we live in, and capitalism and norms and wherever that leads you. ... But then I still end up thinking it’s kinda dumb again. Because it’s so simple and approachable, a lot of streetwear kids may think it’s deeper than it really is. Similar to Rick and Morty, it makes people feel smart, but is it really saying something about capitalism and society that already hasn’t been said? Probably not.
Off-White is huge — that’s inarguable — and the best explanation of the brand might just be the products themselves: Rihanna’s $1,000 over-the-knee white leather boots that say “For Walking” (in quotes) up the back of the calf, even though she was actually wearing them to stand on a stage and perform a private concert for label executives at the Top Dawg Christmas party last year.
Or John Mayer’s Off-White x Nike Air Prestos, which he likely received for free before he paid the Grateful Dead-obsessed Instagram brand Online Ceramics to tie-dye them for him, inspiring a former Hypebeast editor to tweet that we have reached “Peak Tie-Dye” and “the most 2018 Streetwear Sentence” in one swoop.
Or the translucent Off White Converse high-tops, reviewed by renowned YouTube weirdo Brad Hall as, “The right foot says ‘left,’ the left foot says ‘right,’ it might totally reprogram my brain, not sure I’m ready for that.” I, for one, love this absolutely useless floor-length, neon-yellow tutu, which Beyoncé wore one time.
“To be fair,” Castro told me. “Off-White does have some fire items.” It’s true. That is fair. It is also fair to say that whether Off-White’s designs are rip-offs will cease to be a very interesting question, as we sit back and watch more and more youth-craving fashion brands attempt to copy everything else about it.
A playful cat decided it was its moment to shine when it hopped up on the runway of a live fashion show in Turkey and tried to strut its stuff with the other models. It was impawsibly cute.
The grey and white cat was captured traipsing around the runway in a now viral video posted by Instagram user hknylcn on Friday.
The fearless feline is first seen strolling on the runway, but the cat then became more and more playful with the models.
The cat appears to try to play with the models' clothes, pawing at pant legs, dangling sashes and just about anything else that catches its eye.
The video ends with the cat walking over to its new adoring fans, those sitting in the front row of the show.
Signs in the back of the runway indicate the video was taken at at the 2018 Esmod International Fashion Show held in Istanbul, Turkey.
This show-stealing feline certainly gave new meaning to the term catwalk.
Meghan and Harry visit Courtnay Creative for an event celebrating the city's thriving arts scene in Wellington, New Zealand Photo: Samir Hussein/WireImage
Pregnant and radiant, with her winning smile, intelligence and down-to-earth warmth, Meghan Markle has been unquestionably the star of the first official extended overseas royal trip she and Prince Harry are taking for 16 days to cities in Australia, Fiji, Tonga and New Zealand.
Meghan visits Courtnay Creative for an event celebrating the city's thriving arts scene in Wellington. Considered one of the best looks of the tour, this white tuxedo dress with adjustable buttons by New Zealand-based designer Maggie Marilyn was custom-made for Meghan. The blue shoes are Manolo Blahnik Photo: Samir Hussein/WireImage
"Australian designers get a taste of the 'Meghan Effect' after the Duchess of Sussex championed a spate of local names during the royal tour," WWD wrote in an article about "Meghan Mania" sweeping Australia, and the fact that she included a number of local labels in her tour wardrobe, "alongside international brands as Brandon Maxwell, Jason Wu, Roksanda Ilincic, Stuart Weitzman, Manolo Blahnik, Gucci and Birks."
Dressing down in waterproof jackets for a visit to Abel Tasman National Park in New Zealand's South Island to visit conservation initiatives managed by the Department of Conservation. With the Seasalt jacket Meghan wore Outland Denim ‘Harriet’ jeans, Stella McCartney tennis shoes and a Loro Piana scarf Photo: Samir Hussein/WireImage
For a visit to the Maranui Surf Life Saving Club to discuss the country’s mental health initiatives, Meghan chose a Club Monaco Ellayne Trench coat in seaweed green, black Outland jeans, a Jac and Jack black turtleneck and lace-up Stuart Weitzman boots Photo: Ian Vogler-Pool/Getty Images
Photo: Karwai Tang/WireImage
After the media attention fixed on every outfit, many of brands have seen their websites crashed from a tsunami of orders. Among the affected are Sydney designer Karen Gee, who made the ivory crepe sheath dress Meghan wore for their first engagement at Admiralty House. According to WWD, in 24 hours the brand sold more than 250 dresses, that cost 1,290 Australian dollars, or $918 each, with hundreds more consigned to a waiting list.
It must be noted that Meghan has made a point of wearing brands with a sustainable focus such as her skinny black jeans from Queensland-based, B Corp. which are made by Cambodian women rescued from human trafficking and sexual exploitation.
Her flats by San Francisco brand Rothy’s are made from recycled plastic bottles and her white sneakers by the French ethical brand Veja.
The casual chic ASOS maternity black midi dress and plaid trench by Karen Walker Meghan wore for their arrival to the Wellington New Zealand, airport has been another favorite among fashionistas. She completed the look with Sarah Flint pumps. She kept the outfit during the first events of the day - a welcome ceremony and a wreath-laying at the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior Photo: Samir Hussein/WireImage
Photo: Samir Hussein/WireImage
For the closing of the Invictus Games, where she gave a speech, Meghan wore a bespoke Antonio Berardi dress, a Cuyana mini chain saddle bag and Aquazzura Casablanca peach suede pumps Photo: Samir Hussein/WireImage
Meghan presented gold medals to Team USA at the Wheelchair Basketball final of the Invictus Games in Sydney, wearing a poppy clasped to her jacket by Australian luxury label Scanlan Theodore, Outland Denim black trousers and matching pumps Photo: Samir Hussein/WireImage
"Australians have always loved Prince Harry," writes The Sun. "And now they wanted to love Meghan, too. She was not going to let them down despite the fatigue that comes with jet lag and her pregnancy."
According to the paper, she wanted to give them her best and be the best even if it meant getting up at 4.30 am to do yoga to “refresh her mind.”
"No one was going to stop this strong American woman who wowed crowds with her panache. All she wanted in return was to be able to hold Harry’s hand for reassurance, which she did. So much so the media named it 'the tour of PDAs (public displays of affection).'"
In a blue button-down Veronica Beard dress, teamed with suede blue shoes, for the unveiling of The Queen's Commonwealth Canopy at Tupou College in Nuku'alofa, Tonga Photo: Karwai Tang/WireImage
Meghan stole the show with this bird-embellished Oscar de la Renta gown for the Australian Geographic Society Awards in Sydney. The look is considered the best of the tour by fashion experts. Photo: Paul Edwards-Pool/Getty Images
Meghan wore a Martin Grant stripey button-down shirt dress to an exhibition of Tongan handicrafts in Nuku'alofa, Tonga Photo: Dominic Lipinski-Pool/Getty Images
After a quick change on the plane, the Sussexes touched down in Fua'amotu and Meghan made a bold statement with this red Self Portrait dress. She kept her Manolos on and teamed the look with a Dior clutch bag Photos: Karwai Tang/WireImage
A formal and impeccably elegant look for a private audience with King Tupou VI and Queen NanasipauÕu at the Consular House in Nuku'alofa, Tonga. Meghan wore a white cap-sleeved custom gown by Theia with black heels and a Givenchy clutch Photo: Pool/Samir Hussein/WireImage
Meghan visits the University of the South Pacific in Suva, Fiji, and for a morning tea she chose a colorful pink floral drap-dress with pom-pom details by Figue, paired with her trusted black Castaner espadrilles Photo: Phil Noble-Pool/Getty Images
During a meeting with President Jioji Konrote on the first day of their tour to Fiji, the Duchess wore a white Zimmerman dress with long sleeves, accessorized with a matching fascinator, black clutch by Kayu and bow detailed shoes by Tabitha Simmons Photo: Andrew Parsons-Pool/Getty Images
Another favorite: Meghan wore the blue "bump hugging" cape gown that accentuated her growing baby bump by the Fijian brand Safivva to the state dinner hosted by the president of the South Pacific nation Jioji Konrote in Suva, Fiji Photo: Samir Hussein/WireImage
Relaxed and refreshed in this breezy, see-through (similar to a famous one Princess Diana wore in 1980) linen frock by Reformation that included a revealing thigh-high slit, Megan walked with Harry along a jetty during a trip to Fraser Island. She paired it with gladiator sandals by Sarah Flint and sunglasses by Karen Walker Photo: Chris Jackson/Getty Images
For the Invictus Games Sydney 2018 Jaguar Land Rover Driving Challenge on Cockatoo Island, Meghan wore black skinny jeans, a button-down shirt with the games logo and a white Altuzarra blazer with shades and her black Tabitha Simmons heels Photo: Karwai Tang/WireImage
Meghan attends the official opening of the extension of the ANZAC Memorial in Hyde Park, Sydney, dressed in this tea-length black button-down dress by Emilia Wickstead, accessorized with a black fascinator, and a Kayu clutch Photo: Karwai Tang/WireImage
For a walk to Bondi Beach in Sydney, she wore another breezy olive-striped dress by Martin Grant with her black espadrilles Photo: Ryan Pierse/Getty Images
During a visit to Macarthur Girls High School in Sydney on the fourth day of their visit to Australia, Meghan wore this Roksanda's sleeveless navy dress with a contrasting hem, neutral pumps and a gold bracelet Photo: Phil Noble/PA Images via Getty Images
To visit South Melbourne Beach, Meghan kept the trench coat she had worn earlier in the day over a black dress by Club Monaco and traded her heels for flats by Rothy Photo: Samir Hussein/WireImage
Meghan opted for this folded sail-style navy dress with a cascading flounce by Australia designer Dion Lee, with navy pumps, to attend a reception hosted by the Governor of Victoria at Government House Photo: Samir Hussein/WireImage
This was the first casual look of the tour chosen by Meghan for her arrival at Dubbo Airport: black pants, a crisp white untucked button-down and an oversized blazer designed by her friend, tennis star Serena Williams. She accessorized with a pair of black ankle booties Photo: Samir Hussein / WireImage
In a white, crew-neck sheath dress by Karen Gee, paired with a classic trench coat and matching heels to meet members of the public outside the Sydney Opera House Photo: Karwai Tang/WireImage
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