Review by Booklist Review
Pulitzer Prize--winning journalist Givhan (The Battle of Versailles, 2015) reflects on the intersections of race, tastemaking, power, and fashion in her new biography of Virgil Abloh (1980--2021), a polymath who earned degrees in engineering and architecture before collaborating with Nike on an iconic collection of sneakers and winning one of the most coveted roles in fashion, artistic director at Louis Vuitton. Abloh emerges as genial, savvy, and brilliantly creative, but Givhan uses his "extraordinary career trajectory" to tell a story that goes beyond the individual. She acknowledges and details the vast web of pathbreakers (like fashion designers Patrick Kelley and Ozwald Boateng, known for his exquisite tailoring), mentors (including graphic designer Peter Saville), and collaborators (most notably Kanye West) who made Abloh's meteoric rise possible and, in some cases, dedicates full chapters to them. This refreshing take on biography celebrates individual achievement by placing it in a dynamic social and cultural context. It is just the right treatment for Abloh, who, as Givhan argues, built his design career by celebrating and facilitating community.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
This bracing account from Pulitzer Prize--winning critic Givhan (The Battle of Versailles) explores how designer Virgil Abloh, who died of cancer at age 41 in 2021, transformed the fashion world. Growing up in Rockford, Ill., Abloh straddled disparate worlds and traditions, embracing hip-hop fashion as enthusiastically as he did the preppy uniforms he wore to his Catholic high school. An architect by training, Abloh began his fashion career in 2012 with the T-shirt brand Pyrex Vision, for which he created pieces that generated meaning by placing old items in new contexts. For instance, Givhan argues that Abloh's customizations of Ralph Lauren flannels juxtaposed his background as the son of Ghanaian immigrants with the brand's blue-blooded reputation, implying that "the Dream was more valuable because of his contribution to it." Elsewhere, Givhan offers detailed accounts of Abloh's working relationship with Kanye West, whom Abloh designed stage sets and album covers for, and his appointment as the first Black artistic director of Louis Vuitton, where he reimagined luxury for a more diverse customer base. The sharp blend of biography, cultural history, and fashion criticism makes effective use of Abloh's story to speak to a recent tectonic shift inside the fashion industry as it reconsiders the meaning of luxury and who gets to decide. The result is an excellent testament to Abloh's enduring influence. Agent: David Kuhn and Nate Muscato, Aevitas Creative Management. (June)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
Paying tribute to a pioneering designer. Virgil Abloh's life story did not presage his role as Louis Vuitton's first Black artistic director. The child of Ghanian immigrants, Abloh grew up in small-town Illinois with no ties to the fashion industry. In college, he studied business, and in graduate school, architecture. His master's program brought him to Chicago, where he became rapper Kanye West's trusted friend. Instead of pursuing architecture, Abloh founded a brand called Off-White that grew out of his experimentation with printing graphics on luxury T-shirts. Although some critiqued the collection's focus on image rather than silhouettes, Abloh's work was enough to make him a finalist for the esteemed LVMH Prize. Journalist and author Givhan credits Abloh's success to a combination of the rise of Black streetwear and the designer's visionary talent. She writes, "Abloh rose during a time of existential angst for a fashion industry trying to make sense of its responsibilities to an increasingly diverse audience, its power to shape identity, and the challenges of selling status to a generation of consumers who fetishized sneakers, prioritized comfort, and had little use for rhapsodic nostalgia." This evolution in the fashion industry, Givhan argues, created a space where Abloh excelled, in part, because he lacked the "familiar bona fides" required of most designers. Sometimes, the author spends more time on Abloh's line of work than on his life--Abloh was only 41 when he died of cancer in 2021. But the book amply displays her deep knowledge of the fashion industry and her understanding of how history, culture, and systems of oppression shape style. A finely tailored biography of a prestigious designer. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
