Virgil Abloh's Design Philosophy and Insights

Hi everyone, thank you for coming. It's awesome to have such a giant crowd here. It's pretty sweet. So it's my pleasure to introduce Virgil Abloh today at the Graduate School of Design. I met Virgil many years ago. We were working side by side on a pavilion for an immersive film experience in Cannes. And it was a very challenging project. On the one hand due to the schedule, on the other hand due to its technical complexity. And so a couple of nights right before the actual opening, One of the many and pretty important stakeholders was losing his patience, and he sent a rather aggravated email to Virgil. He was saying something along the lines of, what is happening here is crazy, we're trying to pull off a multi-million dollar super complex project, it's the 11th hour, dramatic changes are being done, changes are still being made, the soundtrack isn't ready, neither the video, we're changing the architecture, this is all insane. And I remember Virgil's response being, I know, teamwork is dream work. But that attitude, that combination of clarity of vision on the one hand and audacity on the other hand, lies at the core of his nature and is certainly the kind of infrastructure that is both constantly identifiable in his work and it's also what enables him to conquer the creative worlds at such an intense speed. Virgil is never not Virgil. And that constant is what allows him to seamlessly navigate the abrupt terrain between different territories, be it fashion, music, scenography, art, architecture, industrial or graphic design, performance. You will never see him lose his cool, not before the first fashion show for his brand Off-White in Paris, not in the midst of overseeing the design for an entire world tour for one of the world's biggest musicians, not in front of the crowded lines at the clubs where he DJs as Flat White. not in front of full auditoriums across the globe. Since that night in Cannes, Virgil came quite a long way. He was nominated in 2015 as one of the top eight finalists for the LVMH Prize in Paris. He was inducted in the BOA 500, the People Shaping the Global Fashion Industry list. He was also a top nominee in the category of International Urban Luxury Brand at the British Fashion Awards. and also a nominee for Emerging Talent at the CFDA Awards. And in 2019, Virgil will be showcasing an artwork-focused retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, Illinois. But Virgil initially started his career off by studying structural engineering, yet his biggest revelation in school was that there was an architecture department. In his own words, he didn't know up until that point that architecture was a thing. something you could legitimately study or make a living with. He then proceeded to get a degree in architecture from IIT, and it seems that ever since, no stone was left unturned. His work covers an immense spectrum of collaborations with people like Jenny Holzer, corporations like Nike or Ikea, musicians like Travis Scott, just to name a few. And I'm pretty sure I left quite a few out there. One could argue the drive behind Virgil's philosophy comes from that very first experience. At the heart of it lies an endless generosity, openness, and transparency. He will not veer himself with the mystique of success, but on the contrary, he's in a constant dialogue with the audience around him. He's opening up his process, always deconstructing his creative methodologies in a public arena, hoping that through that someone is being exposed to thoughts and ideas that they haven't encountered or dared to consider before. Our first direct project for Off-White was a little store, the first store ever. in Hong Kong and it started with a stroll through the Chelsea galleries. We were looking at art and talking about the vision for how a space could represent everything that Virgil stands for. The ultimate freedom to be different things, all at once and none at the same time. The next time we saw each other again was actually at the very opening of that store. The entire process and communication, every single decision, design decision over the span of over six months, was done on text message. While it might sound terrifying to some, It was one of the smoothest process I have encountered and it speaks volumes about Virgil's ease to collaborate, as well as his skill to express ideas, because it requires a huge control of language to be able to communicate with precision in such a limiting medium. We did in fact make a book from the process since it had been so insightful too. Virgil may not be practicing architecture in a traditional sense, but he is an architect at a different scale, one that goes beyond the physicality. of space, a realm that transcends any boundaries, centered around the core of pure creative freedom. Ladies and gentlemen, it's my pleasure to welcome at the Graduate School of Design, Virgil Abloh. I'm going to turn off my WhatsApp before it starts annoying you, or you can get a sense of how many messages come through on the wave. All right. That introduction was serious. Thanks, Iwana. Thanks to Harvard for allowing me to come and sort of share random things on my laptop. But that's what this is about to be. First and foremost, I identify with you guys I still feel like I'm a perpetual kid at school and that's first thing that I wanted to deliver because when I was a student all that I wish I knew knew now is that one person would have told me like one like ounce of advice that wasn't necessarily like the rest of your career will be like an uphill battle but more likely that there's all these sort of shortcuts that you can take and so that's what this literally this whole presentation is about it's about shortcuts that i've learned through studying something super practical like engineering and architecture but then in the outside world there's all these sorts of caveats that you can use to sort of find your career choice that's not delineated by like a single major or a single coursework that you're in and in typical fashion I'm super interested in doing what was inspiring to me the most when I was in school is watching sort of like famous architects present projects that were like buildings built in far off lands that looked pretty cool like in photographs but instead of course as I want to mentioned And my work is sort of like by nature cross-disciplinary. And it sort of lives outside the walls of architecture, but is the exact same line of thinking that I learned in school. So that's sort of like the premise. And I'm just going to flip through and just showcase different things that Instagram basically doesn't have the capability to show. So basically every project that I'm working on that I would never Instagram, I'm just going to start sharing. sharing in that, like Ikea, Nike stuff, get in trouble probably by some corporation in two seconds, but let's do it. Sweet. So, as I sort of outlined, you guys understand, but let's call it design work, you know, in an architectural arena. we solve problems in a very structured way. That's what we're here to do. You know, that's what this training is about. And basically, what I want to sort of, like, put forth is that that logic works in an analogous way in basically every other aspect of culture. We focus on living, we focus on design, providing good design as a humanitarian effort. But essentially, understanding that this way of thinking can apply to everything. So this is the first time I'm debuting a new wave. It's called these red slides. These red slides are cheat codes. Basically, if you can answer them, you... you basically give yourself a cheat code. And that's like the sort of 2.0 of these talks that I'm using. And it's things that I've had to learn. I basically work at a feverish pace in a self-serving way just to find my signature. Like, what's my DNA? Every architect, designer, artist that I look up to, whether they were doing paintings or buildings in their early career to the end of their career, there's basically a through line. So what I would challenge you in your work, no matter what, is go back. Go back to when you were like, that your earliest memories or the way that you thought to organize something, the way you thought to organize your closet or what colors were your favorite. Back in that sort of like early rationale before you sort of learned too much, that's when your DNA started. And for me, that sort of leads me to my next slide, which I'm super proud of because it's the first time I've ever thought about what I'm doing. and sort of made myself make a list. This is straight from the iPhone notes into my sort of standard template. But I'll just run through it really fast, and then the projects that I show afterwards, see if you can sort of see these signifiers. But this is by, like, challenging myself to do a million projects at a time. I'm super obsessed with Duchamp. Super obsessed with ready-made. You know, this idea that an artist, like, overthought the game, you know, understood the parameters, provided something provocative, provided something that became a launch pad for other forms of art. And as you'll see in a slide later, it's important to recognize where we're at in the lineage of art movements, you know, especially now. I'm sure even in your... class you're sort of like challenge yourself to invent something new try to be so like avant-garde that has zero place basically that's impossible you know these are things that I figured out through working is that we exist off the backs of many other things and iterations before us. So once you think about us as a collective, you then realize that we're all tracking towards the same direction and that's where I think humanity underlies this word down here. I'm sure it says design somewhere. So number two for me is obviously this thing that's probably getting a little bit tired but get used to it because I'm going to keep using it. It's talking in quotes. It's basically humor. people laughed and that that's literally the point of that tool is to sort of insert humanity through conversation you open up when you laugh and obviously in our era where like vintage is more cool than like uh it's like a popular trendy item it's it's just us being ironic you know normcore k-hole that whole like rationale it's real that's uh you know american apparel that whole thing is is just the halo that we're we're in. So my way of doing that and trying to be the most like the most Duchamp version of ironic is speaking in quotes because it allows me to say two things at the same time or be figurative and sort of precise. And I can basically design with a keyboard. I don't need Photoshop or anything else. So there's that. Then I have my sort of like three percent approach. Right now I'm only interested in editing something three percent from from its original form. I'm basically tired. Might be too old, but I found that I'm like, things are intriguing to me when they're like, slightly edited, like these shoes. It's like skipping ahead really far into the presentation, but there's more Nikes in this box that I'm gonna throw around. But, you know, this is an Air Force One. Yeah, the Jordan way. But, like, essentially I got asked to do another Air Force One. This is like a new, new one. But I was only interested in restraining myself and only editing it 3%. Because I don't want another shoe. I want to see something that makes me recognize the shoe that I already have. But it's a personal thing. Moving down. Basically, you know, Off-White, it's basically a shorthand. and like a pseudonym to remind me that I'm always just comparing two things, whether they're super dissimilar or they are actually like, you know, the same. It's just my shorthand to say, you know, between like luxury and street wear, that's how I can decide if a dress is done or not, or if this t-shirt graphic is finished. It's an internal like measuring stick. And then number five is I love work in progress. It's another humanity thing. And once I realized that it's okay to not be a perfectionist, all of a sudden I can do a million things at once and go to sleep at night. And I think it's important. I look at other friends' work who are super precise and perfectionist. And I realize if I'm just trying to be a perfectionist that I'm not even thinking anymore. The sort of design process is just going on to find some sort of space that ultimately actually looks like something else I've seen. And I think it's important. important to remember that your hand and your brain will tell you when something's finished and then post-rationalize make up make up something afterwards or whatever number six which is important to me it's like this goes back to like do we need another shoe do we need another whatever it's basically an output for me has to have a reason to exist you know i think that's why we have like bins and recycling bins. It's like it's in our brain that over consuming is obviously not OK. But I think to us in the design community, we're the thinkers. We're the ones who are going to challenge all these generational decisions. But first, every output, does it need to exist? It's OK to say no in that context. And then number six. It's like, Army Number Seven is one of the things that is a driving principle to me. It's like, that the tourist and the purist, like, meet somewhere. And that's basically what I love about coming to college towns, is because I remember being here. It's like, think about how much knowledge is in here. then think about how much knowledge is in Boston. It only, you know, like you could almost, there was a metric, it lives in like these blocks, but there's real people in the world that benefit. And if we're not, at the end of the day, interchanging with that, then ultimately it's self-serving as fun as design is. So that's super important in my work. Ikea. So surreal. Basically when they hit me up the first time, I swore they wanted me to DJ an event. I had my team try to find the emails. I want to do an Ikea project. This is before Hypebeast was posting Ikea. hats and all that I was like can you imagine not even in an ironic way it's like I'm you guys like so I was like the architecture kid that was like making chairs because like class was so boring that I needed to like do something else and I was like oh what if I could bring this sort of mentality that I was doing towards t-shirts to Ikea and so this is my squad all kids that I hired off Instagram that just came up to me and were like hey I know how to use 3d whatever I was like, cool, you're down. This is us last week, so this is not even old footage. This is, yeah. It's funny, this is Ikea hotels, crazy place. So I'm just going to go fast because I've got too many slides. But basically, the first project was designing a living environment for a millennial, which is super cool. Ikea serves two billion people. people like I'm still stuck on that metric it's like is what to what I wanna was saying is like architecture I used to think was just like building buildings but me navigating my way into this institution basically that provides furniture to like real people you know like these are tourists and to me if I can bring an ounce of a new idea or an ounce of like an idea that I had when I I was a student, that's already a win because it feels a little bit different. So as you can tell, that rug was racking my brain. Of course, it looks super simple, but for me, it's pulling those vocab words out of my own language and applying it. I love the idea of thinking about the living room that you're not supposed to stand or use certain furniture. It looks expensive. So, you know, that's that. So like off-white balance in a moment. Here, there's a secret rug that you can't see at the bottom. Move past that. Here's, you know, I challenge myself too. It's like, who actually has the luxury to have a rug that big? But it's amazing. You know, IKEA represents democratic design, which is a whole philosophy, which actually betters the earth and betters our consumption. And they make the best products that they can make. And to me, me what's key is that they're affordable obviously off-white is its own thing it's by design and own project but it's important to me that things are attainable you know that's why this lecture is free but it's about the ideas like you know it's about the ethos and that's why I'm excited to always share that but you know like this I don't know how much it's going to cost but definitely probably like under 50 bucks maybe and it's a lot of ideas in there. Definitely gonna get an email about quoting a price that I don't know But it's like Kia, you know, but what's cool to me is it's a piece of art, you know, like one thing about me is that In like 50 years, it'll be my goal is that And it's kind of apparent that I basically just use other factories as my suppliers to make art and you know that's but I use the best and the ones that have a an ethos, not the ones that are sort of behind the scenes. So, um, yeah, this I'm super proud of cause it's an idea that's been realized and is coming up, I think soon. And then again, it's like, uh, you know, a millennial's apartment basically is like, you know, 30 pieces that I have to design, which is scary. It's probably the longest design project that I've ever sort of taken on myself. And a large part of that is because it's so permanent. You know, it's like a t-shirt is only going to get like... five wares or something like that. And then you're on to the next, you know, it's fashion. That's the whole premise that it, it moves along faster. And there's a romanticism about that, which I love it, which is sort of my main occupation. But once you step out, outside of that square footage of your closet, think about how much you spend per square inch in your space. Like, your closet is like astronomical. Between the shoes, how many hoodies can you fit? You know, that idea, but then what about the rest of your place? And when do you actually make the conscious decision to buy a coffee table? Do you buy it out of necessity, or do you actually have an affinity for it? So me working with IKEA, it was like... It was a super dream project because I could put the attention that I was putting in people's closet into objects that you live with arguably in Periods of ten years, you know, how often would you own a bed in your lifetime? And so that's what I'm trying challenging myself to make. And I'm trying to like, is that something new that I made up that sounds really dumb? But like, what if streetwear was like an architecture movement? Like a movement with an art. And that thing keeps on popping up, because I feel like. obviously we're in this like post-modernism sort of state but to me what streetwear in quotes means uh it's just like using whatever means to make something that is impactful make something super niche and that you're emotionally tied to so you know as this ikea project kept developing there's one like secret element that i can't tell i came up with this really good idea but my lawyer freaked out so i can't even show it, let alone talk about it. But through that, no, which is important. Every time you hear the first no, that's like a good sign. Because that first no will always drive a really good second idea. And then keep that one for yourself. So what I did is I came up with this sort of figurative way of thinking about I was like, what's the best invention in mankind or whatever? And then, you know, just not even really Googling, just like using your own head. It's like you're in Wikipedia. Of course, like the wheel, right? Or fire, skip that. Like the wheel. And then, you know, everyone's got all these like random Tumblr images on their laptop or just like Googling. And I was like, of course, like the wheel. It's like an awesome invention, but whoever invented the doorstop was genius like this idea that Like looking at this image that these two like wheel chocks could stop a plane from taking off That could go around the world, but except for these annoying like yellow blocks can stop a Boeing 747 from going from here to Tokyo and that's Post rationalizing I think that's indicative of my first idea that I wrote really loved that I couldn't, that I can't make in that sort of realm. So inspired by this image is going to be the, basically the Ikea project is rooted in here. And it's that interruption. So these are early sketches. These are sketches only like a week old. This is after going to Ikea, trying to problem solve, but I'm trying to think of an aesthetic and it's pretty similar in all my work. It's like when I started, I always think about one. one detail and I think about repetition to own it. Because that's one idea. It's not about coming up with 60 ideas for one execution. So it's funny, IKEA itself hasn't seen these. The idea to me, it's something I learned too. You have to learn by making. So when I was there, they showed me some of the oldest techniques in wood where like how a broom handle goes into a broom head. and how it's threaded and that sort of closure. So basically, I want to take that very old, classic wood closure, and then this doorstop screws onto the bottom and makes the whole thing level. So it doesn't actually use the doorstop as its physics sort of mechanism. And that, to me, is street wear. But it's deeper into it. And then this chair is supposed to be the most generic chair of your life. Basically, if you were a kindergartner, what do you think a chair is? Because as we go back, I'm like, do we need another chair? Why are we designing chairs? So for me, you can kind of get a window into how many chairs there are. I'm thinking of things like the bed will be like have this like iconic sort of feature again super affordable the mirror is going to be broken basically you know there's like a The ethos for me is like embed art. Art is sort of like free. It's something recognizable. It's non-anonymous. And it sort of makes it intriguing and something worth coveting. I was super excited. inspired by a trip that I took this summer to a friend's home who has like museum quality art like you know open the doors Jeff Koons like crazy thing that you would see like an investment bank lobby you know cool sterling ruby and I was like I want to make something at Ikea that's equally as coveted by you know a multi-million dollar home as it is by you know a college student and to me it's like embedding art into something that is universal. So there's going to be a broken mirror. I'm interested in the number one thing. I've been doing these surveys, too, where I go and visit kids' homes and ask them 20 questions, take photos of their place. And basically, the number one constraint with a home is storage. Skip everything else. You don't really need another rug, chair, whatever. It's that the stuff that you already have is like, you don't know what to do with it. And my idea is making visible storage, so at least you can recognize what you own. That's why you have it. A bag. Of course, I'm doing the bag. But yeah, this is sort of the equation. Solving very practical things with adding some value. Imagine the regular chair and then this weird chair with the red doorstop. To me, that's cool to look at. It becomes something on top of its function. There's a little Ikea vibe going on, you know, this slide here, another one, this is like photo that. Not really, it's not that important, but it's impactful to me because Because the whole Instagram, everyone's creative, Peter Saville, my mentor, the guy that did all those Joy Division album covers, told me... like super mentor of mine and was like he's like you know why your generation has this like feeling of angst like why you're sort of like super norm a little bit over it but you're excited to be in it he was like in my time which he you know just predates me but like 20 30 years was like when we were in london like he just you know communication graphic design meets a band called joy division they didn't even have anyone to do an album cover and they're just like hey we know how to use these like things at school And it was basically just that waveform was just a reference that he had and just like gave it to the like photocopied it And was like here and it's like a super important album packaging of of their time and our time He was basically like back then there was like three of us like on the same street It was like no one was interested in that and like look at all of us like we can fill a room of We're on the same path. So it's like that's where that feeling of like oversaturated is, but it shouldn't be discouraging. You know, it's like we have a bigger community is the way that I see it. But just having a knowledge of what these different periods in art are can help you give understanding to what you're doing and why you arrive at these ideas. That they come, like the whole world evolved in this sort of way. That sort of like gave me a bit of context. So it's not like sort of fighting to be so different. It's just sort of owning my own voice in this like sea of different. and everyone sort of trying to make a mark. So yeah, the Renaissance. That's how I kicked off this wave. And I always bring this up in talks because you can never predict what first project is going to lead to your dream job or career goals. And this was my domino effect. I was just really into Caravaggio to the point where me as a creative person didn't realize you could invent and that's what you know this painting represents to me it's honestly i just put this up here to have it up at harvard and someday just trying to make this long-winded vibe but this is like my domino effect like i hadn't ever overthought it do you know what i mean i just made this video screen printed some shirts and gave them the friends and then that's literally why I'm Standing here, a random sweatshirt and a photo from a book that I liked. And basically it's a two-line poem on the back. that sort of reads like a jersey. And it's super seminal for me, and I think it's important. If you, amongst all your studies, amongst your nine to five, all these kids tuning in on livestream or whatever, if you just force yourself to do the one project that you believe in and then it exists, that's going to be the one that's going to lead you on your career, not necessarily the practical ones. So that's just a show. showcase of what you know i believe that everyone should do and then so going back to that you also have to have mentors like dead or alive you have to sort of connect with some body of work or someone who formulated a thought and an aesthetic and then build yours upon that what most people won't tell you is that the people that you look up to didn't invent it themselves you know everyone has this sort of like i call it like getting your brain reprogrammed like once you sort of of learn a thought process, you can actually see yourself in that and add to it. So for that, it's Corbusier for sure. And this kind of dials into that IKEA project when we're sort of trying to solve this issue of dwelling and how do we live in spaces versus how the generation of thinkers before us thought. And Corbusier obviously thought a house was a machine, a machine to live in. So in that context, the living room is only for living. The kitchen's only for eating. The dressing, your bedroom. it's like improper to change in your living room you know that's not like that's that's not proper human behavior and so obviously I have a mentor I have a sort of thought process and aesthetic that I love but then once you learn the the ethos of why the aesthetic why you love the aesthetic you dig deeper and then you know how to turn the wheel left or right so it's important you know that's why I often reference things I'm not ashamed that sort of recognize these great moments before us, but take anything and add it to the year 2017, it should be different. It should feel like we can collectively agree on it. And that's what I focus on in a number of projects. So, sort of moving on a way, this is also like two weeks ago. In Milan, as the Prada Foundation was getting finished, happened to be there. there meeting with Rem on a project that we're working on. And it was cool. It's like he's discovering this new building at the same time me and my friend are there. So it was like a midway break through our conversation. I strictly love images like this and I'll show them for forever just because the generation of thinkers and designers and us are on earth at the same time. I think it's hyper critical that these loops get get made all the time, students and the people who basically wrote our textbooks. And I'll keep striving to do this and just have conversation. So we spoke, and we got pretty, we're getting in depth. on obviously this idea, what he's working obviously with the countryside and that if half the world's population is living in cities, then what's happening in the countryside and how I'm articulating that is what I see in our sort of dynamic. I was just in Soho like an hour and a half ago. It was like there's so many stores are closed. It was like Palace and there's like Mercer. The end of Mercer is like popping. But all of a sudden, I'm like, oh, all these vacant reasons. Literally half of downtown New York is just empty. And it's like, we have Amazon. We're not even shopping as much. And me, I'm in fashion. So how I'm adopting to this whole idea of countryside, how is that going to change the hip relationship between cities and the countryside? Are kids now going to live in Montauk and then go into the cities on the weekend for entertainment? Like- All you need a first floor retail for is basically eating. You don't need to shop. People aren't even shopping in that place. So the only reason why I bring out this sort of divergent tangent is because this inspires how you can design a t-shirt. It helps me think of, again, do we need more chairs? So I would urge you guys always to think abstract and big. Countryside to city is. It's macro, but it's giving me perspective on how to tackle other projects. Another super important for me is Donald Judd in terms of form. Me personally, I'm trying to find, even though I know my aesthetic, but I'm interested in the overall form that things are taking. And, you know, just another, like, I'm just putting these things out there for people who don't know to Google these names and read up on things besides hypebeast, essentially. But, you know, this is a great quote and it synergizes with... with Henrik, who's like a design leader on my IKEA team. He's another mentor of mine. And he made a good point that struck me. He said, we're at an age where design is just assumed. He's like, you don't notice that a door handle doesn't work until it's broke. He's like, but you forgot that it had been designed. So, you know, we're in a world where we just expect design. And obviously, this room has a higher sort of pension for what design is. But it's everywhere and how can we as a collective make people make the outside you know tourists versus purists make the outside world understand that design is something to be cherished that's to me closer to quality of life than anything else so you know i think it's just important to be mindful of these things as you're doing your student projects you're working on your like extracurricular what your real passion project is is drawing these links all these things are just here as like mood board for tools for you guys to make your own list like I had at the beginning. And then also, like, you know, this is a point of crossing boundaries. Just because you're a furniture designer doesn't mean you can't be an artist or culinary chef, etc. And just studying his form, the way he was using different materials and approaches to execute, like, profound ideas. And it was all rooted in his system. Bingo. Okay, Nike shoes. Which is cool, in the project that I've done so far, I haven't been able to nerd out on the actual process for that shoe or how these things came about. about. It started for me, like, my own personal thing is I'm not a sneaker head. I just wear the same shoes for a really long time and then I just go on to another. But I understand passion for them and obviously i'm from chicago so michael jordan was our basketball player you know so for me the sort of resurgence of this like 85 vintage is where it started for from and of course like being entrusted with nike to sort of re-approach 10 different icons i took that like as like another major design project not like a sort of let's just color them up and put them back out into the market let's almost think about it like a student would, like how I would make a model of it. And I sort of challenged them to... It was like an ethos that I had. I thought Nike products... The only thing that I could add to the situation is that I felt that their products came out of a microwave because they were so good. It's sort of naive, but they're so perfectly put together. So this is the first illustrator that I did myself where I was like... It's like, I want to get the feeling of this, but something brand new. And how does one go about that? And if you remember my seven principles about work in progress or illustrate it. And it was like, I took it with great responsibility that they asked me to approach their icons. And when you think of Nike, you quickly can say air. Which is what the, you know, a large part the whole ethos is based upon. And I did like the naive question, curiosity thing is I grabbed one and I was like, in this Air Jordan, is there an air pocket? Because it didn't say, you know, I couldn't see it. And this predates their technology to sort of open the window. So I just took an X-Acto knife and jammed it in the bottom, realizing that there was air. And I was like, I'm going to write air in my language so that it reinforces the sort of ethos. And then obviously this in process. This is how we ended up with a half-made shoe. As I want to mention, the iPhone is my tool. It's the only thing that I can... I can have a conversation with you and work at the same time. So, of course, I do that too much. But, yeah, WhatsApp is my favorite program of choice. And this air, the placement is all happening on my phone. So early prototype here before we were like getting the whole thing together. These are cool. Anyone from Converse here? A couple of kids? Oh yeah. So you guys can't really properly see these. Do you anyone know who Jim Joe is? He's the artist kid that did Drake's. He's like way important. He did many more things just besides that. But here's like a special edition he did. It's got a swoosh on it. This is the original design intention. It basically Caused like a huge headache when I tried to pull this one off. My dream was that, I love like, like if you could make impossible product, like product that doesn't seem like it would make it through like a legal department. That's like a... ongoing thing but since it was like what I thought the most important thing is it's Nike Inc going across the brands that they own which is huge so it's Air Jordan that's a different company Nike itself and Chuck Taylor a company that that they own, they're giving me 10 of them. So out of all 10, my dream was that you would do something that could only live within the 10 of those products. So if anyone wondered, that's why there's like this woven label that's here. It was another one of my get out of legal sort of issues. I had them cut it as if it was the same as on this one. It was another Jim Joe Air Force One, one of one. art piece is my friend basically who inspires me so I have mentors that are like dead I have mentors that are 30 years older than me but I have mentors that are like 10 years younger than me and he's the friend of mine that sort of gave me the sort of nudge to just like write on things and sort of like don't be precious and I think this embodies that to it he like grabbed it and then just gave this back to me and I was like This is from Dover Street. He just took it off the shelf and drew it and then put it back. And I was like, this is why I make stuff. It's to sort of spark an idea. I'll pass these around so you can guys steal them and I'll find you for sure. Kid with the Ogg hat. Yeah, but I think it's important not to be precious. That's what this whole thing is. Like Nike, another dream project for me. And I was like, I have to hit this out of the park. And all the architecture kids can sort of... of catch a vibe. A lot of this is like model making. That's where the, this is at the same time that I came up with that whole putting sculpture on a bag where that was like just me finding sort of new space. And that's when I was like, you know, a shoe. Shoe isn't a shoe to me. I'm not approaching it as a shoe. And I think maybe that's why I found a little bit of open space, is that I was just looking at it like an object. You can choose to wear it on your shoe. And that's kind of where sneaker culture had gone. These just sit above kids' beds, or they sit somewhere. And I think they sit in boxes still. And I wanted to feel like they were already used when you got them. They're still precious, but they seem like objects. This is where the presto came from. A kid named Matt Kilgore is like a genius. Nate Jobe and Rico is like a squad of kids. Like in a shop, just like you guys probably have here. This is why the soul turned out this color. is because this is just a 3D printed soul. And this is actually an Air Max 90 that's turned inside out that got jammed back into it. And I was like, stop. No one do anything else. It's done. It's done. to Nike who's like can make a spaceship basically so that shoe literally that shoe exists because we were just like cutting around and making this so I'm proud of that vibe oh yeah that's that little like cut it's supposed to be Nike but that's as far as I could get them to do This is a shoe, this is the very first shoe that I made there, because I was like, I didn't come all this way from my first Nike meeting and not end up with anything to take home. I was like, where's the printer? You know, like, hey, can you, and I was like, that's what I do, is like, hey, can you do this? Can you glue this here? And so, these are one of my favorite shoes. Just details. The process, I think, you know, you guys can see this and get inspiration off of it, but, you know, I know Iwana's a fan of model making. Did you ever pull that trick off of getting a studio that only does model making? She's working on it. I'm going to take that class. Yeah, the versions of this shoe before it came out. I don't know if I can show that. Yeah, that's the shoe I showed you before. The blazer did that on WhatsApp. The idea that the swoosh was just like lower. You know those mistakes in Photoshop when you like put something over it? and you're like, oh, that looks cool. It's now on your feet. Yeah, this is this. The first version. It's just like sort of one bullet point. That's sort of the process of how I work and the reason why it's a little bit like all over the place. I always thought if you worked linearly, then you have no room. You know, do opposites. It just feels better. But then that space in between, gives you sort of a new experience that you can apply and problem solve. That's why I think I work on so many things at one time. I couldn't just do one project, like day in, day out. I think it's actually not healthy. Women's show. This platform is super cool because when I do a fashion show, it's probably like the most amount of... It's one of the projects that I do. It takes like four months of thinking. And people only see it for seven. minutes and no one ever has a conversation around it. It's usually like two interviews that I do and then it's off. But my last women's show in Paris was based around Princess Diana. And it was a tribute show just because I felt that she sort of predates our now. To me, she's one of the most photographed women on the planet Earth. And it's sort of like in our periphery. But she's like a muse for my life. modern dressing. The fact that she could go literally from something so formal to something so casual, had her own sense of style. There was no Instagram. There was no paparazzi. There's no outfits. There's no stylist to sort of go do the daily errands. So I wanted to highlight that. It's like I have this brand Off-White only to tell stories. I don't have it to do traditional fashion because I don't know that. I started from that Pyrex, like a hoodie. Who? The Caravaggio image. But like I would think, and I promote, is like I was never going to be limited by hoodies and t-shirts, no matter how much it made sense. You can imagine how much advice that I had gotten. It's like, hey, just do that. And it's like, no, I want to draw a line between that and the opposite. And that's the zigzag. So now I'm free to sort of like articulate stories. And this too, drop that in there for you guys. But look at this whole outfit. Look at the image shot on film. The fact that it's universal. That's what I love. You can tell. I love brands. Because it already gives you a starting point to tell another story or divert from that. So these are the type of images that I was looking at. The Red Cross, even that. So a little known fact that I did is I did these pieces and I collaborated with the Red Cross. And I tried to collaborate with Harvard. didn't work but you know like donating back to charities that she was giving her time to so that her message could live on you know like there's no that's an architecture thing that's like literally an architect getting a program and deciding where and how big the room should be put me in fashion and i'm like wait i want to continue this one person's story because super like and the idea of hey using graphic t-shirts that's it a Red Cross off-white. Like they exist now, and the proceeds are going back. So that's something super fulfilling to me that doesn't necessarily fit in any sort of post anywhere. And then obviously, what she meant, she was like Princess Diana, like a living Cinderella. So my show ended up looking like this, from that Pyrex hoodie champion that That wasn't my brand. All the way articulating to this image, which to me is just a five-year-old, five-year graduation of that same exact domino effect project. All the handbags. This I did get legally cleared. Was, I took sort of like news tabloids or sort of all those sorts of things. And I was like, this is a version of a graphic t-shirt to me. It's the handbag. with the logo that is a purse. And the thought process was like one of the most advanced personal concepts for fashion to me is like, put this in 2017, if she was... here with us, or the idea of people who live with paparazzi images of themselves, what's the one thing that a paparazzi mag might not do is promote a competing organization? Which was the whole... ethos behind these handbags was like, you know, this is streetwear, my sort of art movement that I'm trying to claim as something advanced. But the idea to me that they make you laugh, it's got that tinge of irony in it. It's got that feeling like it's juxtaposing something else. And it's not limiting me to the sort of streetwear 1.0, but that I can tell this narrative in a far off different space. So these are just images from the the show. This is derived from a tiara. Obviously no one's going to wear one of those in a modern context. I was like, let's put it on the feet. Let's reimagine what high heels are. I did these all with Jimmy Choo. Got in a little bit of trouble for doing this. I could only use Jimmy Choo shoes in the show. And I had all these Nike shoes. And I was like, can I just do two of them? Because this was based on when you're commuting. like on the train and obviously women having to wear heels on the way to work you hold the heels in your hand and then wear sneakers but you know the ethos is obviously like all right on anything This is a show, super proud of it, because it sort of puts the needle where I want the women's wear for the collection to live. While the menswear or any other ideas that I've had since I've started can still live, but that's the ethos of Off-White. Both are Off-White, not one or the other. Yeah. Last show. These, you can't really see them, but those heels, there's like, based on that sort of like glass slipper vibe, they all had plastic. Yeah, that's it. that they become objects again. And I show these images because you guys might be in your studios thinking that like, and it's not bad. I still practice architecture, not at the same pace or sort of point. But your ideas are analogies. So your thought process could apply to something else that you might not even be thinking of. But hopefully, you see something like this, and it's like, oh, it's OK to start. to veer off and send a random email to a heel company or a random one to an eye glass, Warby Parker, whatever, before you know it, you'll be realizing ideas in different spaces. And that can inform what you're all about. Yeah, street wear. So yeah, again, one of the later epiphanies that I've been having is that even in conversations like an analogy is something that works for us in a design sense you can use these same tools in different mediums and arrive at different results so keep that in mind yeah of course rap music oh okay so in that same vein of analogies of course i can't limit myself to just like ikea or nike really the idea behind this video Lil Uzi asked me to direct his music video and it might be different for you guys but my immediate reaction to anyone asking me anything is yes and then I'll think about it and usually I won't say no but 9 times out of 10 I should probably be like oh I'm busy or whatever but I just say yes and he had asked me to direct this video and I was like yeah let's do it and I hadn't even had the full idea yet but I know my seven principles are of this in-process thing. It's my signature. It's the way that I realize concepts. So we shot this. This is the second video I've ever shot. The first one was Fashion Killa with ASAP Rocky and Rihanna. It was a long time ago. Proud of that, too. All videos that I've shot take place in the Mercer Hotel, which is random, but it's a fact. This is like the director's edit that I made, which is like the purest form of the idea, basically before the record label adds a bunch of jazz. But it's to showcase that, hey, if I'm asked or there's an opportunity to exist, it's not about building a building, sending a graphic for this, or oh, I only do that. It's like, keep that door open, and then you can make new works of art. in different spaces. So my way of capturing this sort of in-process moments that I put myself in the process. So there's two points of view of this. This same sort of narrative, the reason why I showed the Princess Diana sort of project in this one is that I'm touching on the same social commentary part. Works of art that are distinctly made now influence with our penchant to like something, like see photos and press something. Princess Diana, that's literally the world that she lived in by being the most photographed. Or the sort of like energy that happens outside. Prince and Mercer when there's famous people on the street, and then they just go through this mystical door, then no one breaks that barrier. So this video was about that. Like, you can't, I'm not going to promote that. But basically, when those lines get crossed, and that's what this was. It was me just traveling from the street through to, you know, making it all the way up to this hotel room, but telling that modern narrative story. that people want to sort of know more and get all the way up close to that information or synergy, just hang out with their favorite rap star or whatever. That line, what does it look like once that sort of barrier has been broken? So, you know, this sort of, like, video takes place. You know, this, like, figurative all my friends are not alive wave. Yeah, but films, you know, like, moving. Moving imagery is such a good thing on the mood board. Not all mood boards should be like Tumblr images. Yeah, that was the end. Got fined 3K for the blood. Again, so you know like this is mine. I urge... Yeah, I always wanted to say this. Everyone's homework is before next class is to make their own design language. Literally I'm very upset that it took me I'm 37 so it took me this long to well I think it takes a lot of work and a lot of projects to define that you know yours might only be like two or three three at this point or it could be 13 but it's like if you it's like why work you know like what are you working towards you don't have you know you're either in or you're out like you could just just be chill but obviously I take a huge sort of passion about the creative work I do it's not even work it's just living for me but so the things that make it more tangible is that they make sense and that there's a lineage, at least that I'm focusing on a project, irreverent to whatever medium it is. So in closing, basically put yourself in my shoes. It's super weird to have this light on me. I'm not that special. You guys, you have all the resources. And this is like a message because obviously I'll be hanging out on the corner talking to kids that are aspirational. about doing something design work. And obviously, when they see me here, they're like, what? You're at Harvard. How come you don't come to wherever? And the whole point, it's in my sort of presentation. It's not about one or the other. It's that we're all in this one big conversation. So the whole point of this whole sort of presentation of just stuff that normally doesn't get shown is I'd rather share it to the world so that somebody takes it and spins it off. into something that is impactful for them. So with that, I need that converse Chuck Taylor back. Where is it? All right. But, yeah, that was basically it. But I'm really, like, this one is you, you know? The idea that, you know, I don't know what your internal metric is for what your goals are. They should all be very different. but you guys are born A very awesome, distinct time. Like, I think that this is the renaissance. Don't get sort of trapped into, like, this everything sucks, the world is, like, coming to an end. That's just, like, an internal mechanism, basically, to chill. When you don't have to put yourself out there. You can like wake up every day and come up with excuses, but it's exactly the opposite. And I think you guys have an awesome education background. You guys are, you're intrigued enough to come hear this rambling of a bunch of random projects, but I know you guys, if you're interested in this, you guys are interested in tackling something that isn't seen yet. So with that, I'm done. We'll have about 10 minutes for questions if you guys have any. There's two people with mics running. Hi. Yeah. Hey, Richard. Thanks for the amazing lecture and the product that you show. Well, I don't mind if you throw me a sneaker if I ask a bad question. So I'm going to go to the next one. I actually watched the video, it called Crash Course that you did with Nike. Yeah. And I was the kid that you talked about that I was in the back of the live stream. Oh. Well, okay. Let's go to the questions. So I might not be at the edge that you were the big fan of Michael Jordan, but I guess, well, I was at the edge that Aaron Iverson and Kobe Bryant, that was quite on the hill. Stars, yeah. Yeah. So my question is too related to what Aaron Iverson was asking. I'm talking about practice. Oh, that he doesn't need to practice, basically. Yeah. I mean, so I'm curious, like, what's, like, a routine practice that in your daily schedule that if you can talk deeper about it. That's a good question. Because I don't know about, like, analogies of, like, you know, your brain as a muscle have to, like, work it out or whatever, something weird. But something that was super impactful to me as a Pyrex vision used to be. this tumblr that I had that I would photograph I just trained my eye to be creative limited to one thing that's what I'm doing now with the quotes but it's like I force do some random activity that forces your eye to sort of see things that it normally wouldn't that's for sure how I'm able to sort of like and I call when I idea and just iterating through like 13 things at one time until I can quickly get to an answer You can't do that if you're sort of casually being creative. You know, it's like if you have to like sit and you're like, oh, okay, I'm going to solve this problem. You have to sort of like intertwine it with how you see the world. Like my friend Piot, he's like an art director for Off-White, showed me his friend. He's got this Instagram that he photographs like this one designer brand anytime he sees it. So the whole Instagram, so what it's done is it's trained his brain. while he's casually doing something else, if he sees a black Chanel bag, just shoots it. And then all of a sudden, it's this running creative side. And I think if you want to find new space, if you want to get to another crescendo of design and having your brain figure out how to aesthetically put together something, you have to do it often. And that's what I found myself. yeah good i guess um what's up virgil my name is peter from mathematic athletics um you you mentioned uh having mentors uh especially dead ones i'm trying to figure out um what's the best way And not like no sorcery stuff. Are you communicating? What type of questions are you asking? That you're asking mentors in the past that are in the long hit? For me, the number one, before getting into the nuance, is why. I can think, it's like, why do we? We love rock and roll graphics or something. Like, why do we love hoodies? You know, why do we love designer something? And that sort of gets the first nuance as to, like, the ethos. Like, every mentor I have or, like, someone that's passed, I look into their work, it seems like they have, like, a narrow view. And all the work that you love fits into this view. And I think it's a... It's about having a dialogue with why you're making these decisions. There's certain sort of creative things that you decide before you even get to solving it. And that's why it's important to have somebody that you look up to and constantly conversate. And the most important thing is having someone edit your work. Like, at this point, there's no wrong answer in design, but there's a right way to edit. And don't think about it in that sort of like, harsh way it's basically look at it as a communication art exercise like that's what design essentially is it's like i have these ideas in my head i put them in this inanimate object hopefully you get this long-winded speech and what what i've done is since i've you know i've made it my sort of practice that whole long 90 page sort of presentation was just i just gleamed out of that those seven bullet points so you guys got the cheat code but like this shoe is like so many details through that you can maybe get it and that that's probably why our conversation with all you guys that haven't met but if you see the shoe we're sort of like halfway talking and then i listed off like six mentors you know so in a nutshell that's like literally my whole brain on display okay last question yeah um what would you describe your defining moment moment like your aha moment as a designer um yeah it was the fact that there is no aha moment that's the one that tripped me up the most i still to this day i'm reluctant to call myself a designer because i believe that designers didn't look like me which is like a deeper that's like a bar you know like rapper you know like quavo comes up with he's like oh shit you know like but that that That was my biggest hurdle. And that's what I mean to tell. That's the only, like, that's the main message that I'm delivering, is that most of these hurdles are self-imposed as designers. Like, they literally don't exist. There is no failure. Failure is, like, as real as, like, Halloween ghosts. Do you know? And as a designer, I was always, like, I literally was, like, oh, I'm just going to work in an office. I'm going to work and be an assistant. to a bigger firm in architecture. And then on the weekends, I was going to DJ and be into Supreme shirts or something like that. And go to Travis Scott shows or something. I was like, that's what life is, 9 to 5. And then the aha moment was like, wait, I can just put work out. And if it's good, it works. If it's bad, no one notices. And I can just get better at it. And then I could run into a friend or a brand. and be like, hey, I got an idea. So that's the reality. That's what I flew in peace out. The cool kids are out. But that's the reality that I wanted to fly here. And it was really Awana's. Our text message is really good. But she had the foresight. But I wanted to just come and just say those few things. And then hopefully you guys run with it. thank you yeah uh hey virgil yeah um so two quick questions um we'll ask the statement first i have a shirt for you um so first question is is yes or no quick uh can you sign my shoes after this second question is um if you want me to sign something i gotta leave in 10 minutes so i'll do it right now okay i'll walk i just gotta i gotta you gotta you gotta throw it you have to throw it from there and i have to catch it if i don't catch it All of these shoot. I'll take five shoot. Hey, one of me. I'm going to be a decent human being. I'm going to be a decent human being and just leave mine right here. I got a marker for you. I got a marker right here. This is going to keep going. Is the mic still on? Somebody make a video of this.

Hi everyone, thank you for coming. It's awesome to have such a giant crowd here. It's pretty sweet. So it's my pleasure to introduce Virgil Abloh today at the Graduate School of Design.

I met Virgil many years ago. We were working side by side on a pavilion for an immersive film experience in Cannes. And it was a very challenging project.

On the one hand due to the schedule, on the other hand due to its technical complexity. And so a couple of nights right before the actual opening, One of the many and pretty important stakeholders was losing his patience, and he sent a rather aggravated email to Virgil. He was saying something along the lines of, what is happening here is crazy, we're trying to pull off a multi-million dollar super complex project, it's the 11th hour, dramatic changes are being done, changes are still being made, the soundtrack isn't ready, neither the video, we're changing the architecture, this is all insane. And I remember Virgil's response being, I know, teamwork is dream work.

But that attitude, that combination of clarity of vision on the one hand and audacity on the other hand, lies at the core of his nature and is certainly the kind of infrastructure that is both constantly identifiable in his work and it's also what enables him to conquer the creative worlds at such an intense speed. Virgil is never not Virgil. And that constant is what allows him to seamlessly navigate the abrupt terrain between different territories, be it fashion, music, scenography, art, architecture, industrial or graphic design, performance. You will never see him lose his cool, not before the first fashion show for his brand Off-White in Paris, not in the midst of overseeing the design for an entire world tour for one of the world's biggest musicians, not in front of the crowded lines at the clubs where he DJs as Flat White.

not in front of full auditoriums across the globe. Since that night in Cannes, Virgil came quite a long way. He was nominated in 2015 as one of the top eight finalists for the LVMH Prize in Paris.

He was inducted in the BOA 500, the People Shaping the Global Fashion Industry list. He was also a top nominee in the category of International Urban Luxury Brand at the British Fashion Awards. and also a nominee for Emerging Talent at the CFDA Awards.

And in 2019, Virgil will be showcasing an artwork-focused retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, Illinois. But Virgil initially started his career off by studying structural engineering, yet his biggest revelation in school was that there was an architecture department. In his own words, he didn't know up until that point that architecture was a thing. something you could legitimately study or make a living with. He then proceeded to get a degree in architecture from IIT, and it seems that ever since, no stone was left unturned.

His work covers an immense spectrum of collaborations with people like Jenny Holzer, corporations like Nike or Ikea, musicians like Travis Scott, just to name a few. And I'm pretty sure I left quite a few out there. One could argue the drive behind Virgil's philosophy comes from that very first experience. At the heart of it lies an endless generosity, openness, and transparency.

He will not veer himself with the mystique of success, but on the contrary, he's in a constant dialogue with the audience around him. He's opening up his process, always deconstructing his creative methodologies in a public arena, hoping that through that someone is being exposed to thoughts and ideas that they haven't encountered or dared to consider before. Our first direct project for Off-White was a little store, the first store ever. in Hong Kong and it started with a stroll through the Chelsea galleries.

We were looking at art and talking about the vision for how a space could represent everything that Virgil stands for. The ultimate freedom to be different things, all at once and none at the same time. The next time we saw each other again was actually at the very opening of that store. The entire process and communication, every single decision, design decision over the span of over six months, was done on text message. While it might sound terrifying to some, It was one of the smoothest process I have encountered and it speaks volumes about Virgil's ease to collaborate, as well as his skill to express ideas, because it requires a huge control of language to be able to communicate with precision in such a limiting medium.

We did in fact make a book from the process since it had been so insightful too. Virgil may not be practicing architecture in a traditional sense, but he is an architect at a different scale, one that goes beyond the physicality. of space, a realm that transcends any boundaries, centered around the core of pure creative freedom. Ladies and gentlemen, it's my pleasure to welcome at the Graduate School of Design, Virgil Abloh.

I'm going to turn off my WhatsApp before it starts annoying you, or you can get a sense of how many messages come through on the wave. All right. That introduction was serious.

Thanks, Iwana. Thanks to Harvard for allowing me to come and sort of share random things on my laptop. But that's what this is about to be. First and foremost, I identify with you guys I still feel like I'm a perpetual kid at school and that's first thing that I wanted to deliver because when I was a student all that I wish I knew knew now is that one person would have told me like one like ounce of advice that wasn't necessarily like the rest of your career will be like an uphill battle but more likely that there's all these sort of shortcuts that you can take and so that's what this literally this whole presentation is about it's about shortcuts that i've learned through studying something super practical like engineering and architecture but then in the outside world there's all these sorts of caveats that you can use to sort of find your career choice that's not delineated by like a single major or a single coursework that you're in and in typical fashion I'm super interested in doing what was inspiring to me the most when I was in school is watching sort of like famous architects present projects that were like buildings built in far off lands that looked pretty cool like in photographs but instead of course as I want to mentioned And my work is sort of like by nature cross-disciplinary. And it sort of lives outside the walls of architecture, but is the exact same line of thinking that I learned in school.

So that's sort of like the premise. And I'm just going to flip through and just showcase different things that Instagram basically doesn't have the capability to show. So basically every project that I'm working on that I would never Instagram, I'm just going to start sharing. sharing in that, like Ikea, Nike stuff, get in trouble probably by some corporation in two seconds, but let's do it. Sweet.

So, as I sort of outlined, you guys understand, but let's call it design work, you know, in an architectural arena. we solve problems in a very structured way. That's what we're here to do. You know, that's what this training is about. And basically, what I want to sort of, like, put forth is that that logic works in an analogous way in basically every other aspect of culture.

We focus on living, we focus on design, providing good design as a humanitarian effort. But essentially, understanding that this way of thinking can apply to everything. So this is the first time I'm debuting a new wave. It's called these red slides.

These red slides are cheat codes. Basically, if you can answer them, you... you basically give yourself a cheat code.

And that's like the sort of 2.0 of these talks that I'm using. And it's things that I've had to learn. I basically work at a feverish pace in a self-serving way just to find my signature.

Like, what's my DNA? Every architect, designer, artist that I look up to, whether they were doing paintings or buildings in their early career to the end of their career, there's basically a through line. So what I would challenge you in your work, no matter what, is go back.

Go back to when you were like, that your earliest memories or the way that you thought to organize something, the way you thought to organize your closet or what colors were your favorite. Back in that sort of like early rationale before you sort of learned too much, that's when your DNA started. And for me, that sort of leads me to my next slide, which I'm super proud of because it's the first time I've ever thought about what I'm doing.

and sort of made myself make a list. This is straight from the iPhone notes into my sort of standard template. But I'll just run through it really fast, and then the projects that I show afterwards, see if you can sort of see these signifiers.

But this is by, like, challenging myself to do a million projects at a time. I'm super obsessed with Duchamp. Super obsessed with ready-made.

You know, this idea that an artist, like, overthought the game, you know, understood the parameters, provided something provocative, provided something that became a launch pad for other forms of art. And as you'll see in a slide later, it's important to recognize where we're at in the lineage of art movements, you know, especially now. I'm sure even in your... class you're sort of like challenge yourself to invent something new try to be so like avant-garde that has zero place basically that's impossible you know these are things that I figured out through working is that we exist off the backs of many other things and iterations before us.

So once you think about us as a collective, you then realize that we're all tracking towards the same direction and that's where I think humanity underlies this word down here. I'm sure it says design somewhere. So number two for me is obviously this thing that's probably getting a little bit tired but get used to it because I'm going to keep using it. It's talking in quotes. It's basically humor.

people laughed and that that's literally the point of that tool is to sort of insert humanity through conversation you open up when you laugh and obviously in our era where like vintage is more cool than like uh it's like a popular trendy item it's it's just us being ironic you know normcore k-hole that whole like rationale it's real that's uh you know american apparel that whole thing is is just the halo that we're we're in. So my way of doing that and trying to be the most like the most Duchamp version of ironic is speaking in quotes because it allows me to say two things at the same time or be figurative and sort of precise. And I can basically design with a keyboard.

I don't need Photoshop or anything else. So there's that. Then I have my sort of like three percent approach.

Right now I'm only interested in editing something three percent from from its original form. I'm basically tired. Might be too old, but I found that I'm like, things are intriguing to me when they're like, slightly edited, like these shoes.

It's like skipping ahead really far into the presentation, but there's more Nikes in this box that I'm gonna throw around. But, you know, this is an Air Force One. Yeah, the Jordan way.

But, like, essentially I got asked to do another Air Force One. This is like a new, new one. But I was only interested in restraining myself and only editing it 3%. Because I don't want another shoe. I want to see something that makes me recognize the shoe that I already have.

But it's a personal thing. Moving down. Basically, you know, Off-White, it's basically a shorthand.

and like a pseudonym to remind me that I'm always just comparing two things, whether they're super dissimilar or they are actually like, you know, the same. It's just my shorthand to say, you know, between like luxury and street wear, that's how I can decide if a dress is done or not, or if this t-shirt graphic is finished. It's an internal like measuring stick.

And then number five is I love work in progress. It's another humanity thing. And once I realized that it's okay to not be a perfectionist, all of a sudden I can do a million things at once and go to sleep at night.

And I think it's important. I look at other friends' work who are super precise and perfectionist. And I realize if I'm just trying to be a perfectionist that I'm not even thinking anymore.

The sort of design process is just going on to find some sort of space that ultimately actually looks like something else I've seen. And I think it's important. important to remember that your hand and your brain will tell you when something's finished and then post-rationalize make up make up something afterwards or whatever number six which is important to me it's like this goes back to like do we need another shoe do we need another whatever it's basically an output for me has to have a reason to exist you know i think that's why we have like bins and recycling bins.

It's like it's in our brain that over consuming is obviously not OK. But I think to us in the design community, we're the thinkers. We're the ones who are going to challenge all these generational decisions.

But first, every output, does it need to exist? It's OK to say no in that context. And then number six.

It's like, Army Number Seven is one of the things that is a driving principle to me. It's like, that the tourist and the purist, like, meet somewhere. And that's basically what I love about coming to college towns, is because I remember being here.

It's like, think about how much knowledge is in here. then think about how much knowledge is in Boston. It only, you know, like you could almost, there was a metric, it lives in like these blocks, but there's real people in the world that benefit.

And if we're not, at the end of the day, interchanging with that, then ultimately it's self-serving as fun as design is. So that's super important in my work. Ikea. So surreal.

Basically when they hit me up the first time, I swore they wanted me to DJ an event. I had my team try to find the emails. I want to do an Ikea project. This is before Hypebeast was posting Ikea.

hats and all that I was like can you imagine not even in an ironic way it's like I'm you guys like so I was like the architecture kid that was like making chairs because like class was so boring that I needed to like do something else and I was like oh what if I could bring this sort of mentality that I was doing towards t-shirts to Ikea and so this is my squad all kids that I hired off Instagram that just came up to me and were like hey I know how to use 3d whatever I was like, cool, you're down. This is us last week, so this is not even old footage. This is, yeah. It's funny, this is Ikea hotels, crazy place.

So I'm just going to go fast because I've got too many slides. But basically, the first project was designing a living environment for a millennial, which is super cool. Ikea serves two billion people.

people like I'm still stuck on that metric it's like is what to what I wanna was saying is like architecture I used to think was just like building buildings but me navigating my way into this institution basically that provides furniture to like real people you know like these are tourists and to me if I can bring an ounce of a new idea or an ounce of like an idea that I had when I I was a student, that's already a win because it feels a little bit different. So as you can tell, that rug was racking my brain. Of course, it looks super simple, but for me, it's pulling those vocab words out of my own language and applying it.

I love the idea of thinking about the living room that you're not supposed to stand or use certain furniture. It looks expensive. So, you know, that's that. So like off-white balance in a moment.

Here, there's a secret rug that you can't see at the bottom. Move past that. Here's, you know, I challenge myself too. It's like, who actually has the luxury to have a rug that big? But it's amazing.

You know, IKEA represents democratic design, which is a whole philosophy, which actually betters the earth and betters our consumption. And they make the best products that they can make. And to me, me what's key is that they're affordable obviously off-white is its own thing it's by design and own project but it's important to me that things are attainable you know that's why this lecture is free but it's about the ideas like you know it's about the ethos and that's why I'm excited to always share that but you know like this I don't know how much it's going to cost but definitely probably like under 50 bucks maybe and it's a lot of ideas in there. Definitely gonna get an email about quoting a price that I don't know But it's like Kia, you know, but what's cool to me is it's a piece of art, you know, like one thing about me is that In like 50 years, it'll be my goal is that And it's kind of apparent that I basically just use other factories as my suppliers to make art and you know that's but I use the best and the ones that have a an ethos, not the ones that are sort of behind the scenes.

So, um, yeah, this I'm super proud of cause it's an idea that's been realized and is coming up, I think soon. And then again, it's like, uh, you know, a millennial's apartment basically is like, you know, 30 pieces that I have to design, which is scary. It's probably the longest design project that I've ever sort of taken on myself. And a large part of that is because it's so permanent.

You know, it's like a t-shirt is only going to get like... five wares or something like that. And then you're on to the next, you know, it's fashion. That's the whole premise that it, it moves along faster.

And there's a romanticism about that, which I love it, which is sort of my main occupation. But once you step out, outside of that square footage of your closet, think about how much you spend per square inch in your space. Like, your closet is like astronomical. Between the shoes, how many hoodies can you fit?

You know, that idea, but then what about the rest of your place? And when do you actually make the conscious decision to buy a coffee table? Do you buy it out of necessity, or do you actually have an affinity for it? So me working with IKEA, it was like... It was a super dream project because I could put the attention that I was putting in people's closet into objects that you live with arguably in Periods of ten years, you know, how often would you own a bed in your lifetime?

And so that's what I'm trying challenging myself to make. And I'm trying to like, is that something new that I made up that sounds really dumb? But like, what if streetwear was like an architecture movement? Like a movement with an art. And that thing keeps on popping up, because I feel like.

obviously we're in this like post-modernism sort of state but to me what streetwear in quotes means uh it's just like using whatever means to make something that is impactful make something super niche and that you're emotionally tied to so you know as this ikea project kept developing there's one like secret element that i can't tell i came up with this really good idea but my lawyer freaked out so i can't even show it, let alone talk about it. But through that, no, which is important. Every time you hear the first no, that's like a good sign.

Because that first no will always drive a really good second idea. And then keep that one for yourself. So what I did is I came up with this sort of figurative way of thinking about I was like, what's the best invention in mankind or whatever?

And then, you know, just not even really Googling, just like using your own head. It's like you're in Wikipedia. Of course, like the wheel, right?

Or fire, skip that. Like the wheel. And then, you know, everyone's got all these like random Tumblr images on their laptop or just like Googling. And I was like, of course, like the wheel.

It's like an awesome invention, but whoever invented the doorstop was genius like this idea that Like looking at this image that these two like wheel chocks could stop a plane from taking off That could go around the world, but except for these annoying like yellow blocks can stop a Boeing 747 from going from here to Tokyo and that's Post rationalizing I think that's indicative of my first idea that I wrote really loved that I couldn't, that I can't make in that sort of realm. So inspired by this image is going to be the, basically the Ikea project is rooted in here. And it's that interruption. So these are early sketches. These are sketches only like a week old.

This is after going to Ikea, trying to problem solve, but I'm trying to think of an aesthetic and it's pretty similar in all my work. It's like when I started, I always think about one. one detail and I think about repetition to own it.

Because that's one idea. It's not about coming up with 60 ideas for one execution. So it's funny, IKEA itself hasn't seen these. The idea to me, it's something I learned too.

You have to learn by making. So when I was there, they showed me some of the oldest techniques in wood where like how a broom handle goes into a broom head. and how it's threaded and that sort of closure. So basically, I want to take that very old, classic wood closure, and then this doorstop screws onto the bottom and makes the whole thing level.

So it doesn't actually use the doorstop as its physics sort of mechanism. And that, to me, is street wear. But it's deeper into it. And then this chair is supposed to be the most generic chair of your life.

Basically, if you were a kindergartner, what do you think a chair is? Because as we go back, I'm like, do we need another chair? Why are we designing chairs? So for me, you can kind of get a window into how many chairs there are. I'm thinking of things like the bed will be like have this like iconic sort of feature again super affordable the mirror is going to be broken basically you know there's like a The ethos for me is like embed art.

Art is sort of like free. It's something recognizable. It's non-anonymous. And it sort of makes it intriguing and something worth coveting.

I was super excited. inspired by a trip that I took this summer to a friend's home who has like museum quality art like you know open the doors Jeff Koons like crazy thing that you would see like an investment bank lobby you know cool sterling ruby and I was like I want to make something at Ikea that's equally as coveted by you know a multi-million dollar home as it is by you know a college student and to me it's like embedding art into something that is universal. So there's going to be a broken mirror. I'm interested in the number one thing.

I've been doing these surveys, too, where I go and visit kids' homes and ask them 20 questions, take photos of their place. And basically, the number one constraint with a home is storage. Skip everything else.

You don't really need another rug, chair, whatever. It's that the stuff that you already have is like, you don't know what to do with it. And my idea is making visible storage, so at least you can recognize what you own. That's why you have it. A bag.

Of course, I'm doing the bag. But yeah, this is sort of the equation. Solving very practical things with adding some value. Imagine the regular chair and then this weird chair with the red doorstop. To me, that's cool to look at.

It becomes something on top of its function. There's a little Ikea vibe going on, you know, this slide here, another one, this is like photo that. Not really, it's not that important, but it's impactful to me because Because the whole Instagram, everyone's creative, Peter Saville, my mentor, the guy that did all those Joy Division album covers, told me...

like super mentor of mine and was like he's like you know why your generation has this like feeling of angst like why you're sort of like super norm a little bit over it but you're excited to be in it he was like in my time which he you know just predates me but like 20 30 years was like when we were in london like he just you know communication graphic design meets a band called joy division they didn't even have anyone to do an album cover and they're just like hey we know how to use these like things at school And it was basically just that waveform was just a reference that he had and just like gave it to the like photocopied it And was like here and it's like a super important album packaging of of their time and our time He was basically like back then there was like three of us like on the same street It was like no one was interested in that and like look at all of us like we can fill a room of We're on the same path. So it's like that's where that feeling of like oversaturated is, but it shouldn't be discouraging. You know, it's like we have a bigger community is the way that I see it.

But just having a knowledge of what these different periods in art are can help you give understanding to what you're doing and why you arrive at these ideas. That they come, like the whole world evolved in this sort of way. That sort of like gave me a bit of context. So it's not like sort of fighting to be so different.

It's just sort of owning my own voice in this like sea of different. and everyone sort of trying to make a mark. So yeah, the Renaissance. That's how I kicked off this wave. And I always bring this up in talks because you can never predict what first project is going to lead to your dream job or career goals.

And this was my domino effect. I was just really into Caravaggio to the point where me as a creative person didn't realize you could invent and that's what you know this painting represents to me it's honestly i just put this up here to have it up at harvard and someday just trying to make this long-winded vibe but this is like my domino effect like i hadn't ever overthought it do you know what i mean i just made this video screen printed some shirts and gave them the friends and then that's literally why I'm Standing here, a random sweatshirt and a photo from a book that I liked. And basically it's a two-line poem on the back.

that sort of reads like a jersey. And it's super seminal for me, and I think it's important. If you, amongst all your studies, amongst your nine to five, all these kids tuning in on livestream or whatever, if you just force yourself to do the one project that you believe in and then it exists, that's going to be the one that's going to lead you on your career, not necessarily the practical ones. So that's just a show. showcase of what you know i believe that everyone should do and then so going back to that you also have to have mentors like dead or alive you have to sort of connect with some body of work or someone who formulated a thought and an aesthetic and then build yours upon that what most people won't tell you is that the people that you look up to didn't invent it themselves you know everyone has this sort of like i call it like getting your brain reprogrammed like once you sort of of learn a thought process, you can actually see yourself in that and add to it.

So for that, it's Corbusier for sure. And this kind of dials into that IKEA project when we're sort of trying to solve this issue of dwelling and how do we live in spaces versus how the generation of thinkers before us thought. And Corbusier obviously thought a house was a machine, a machine to live in.

So in that context, the living room is only for living. The kitchen's only for eating. The dressing, your bedroom. it's like improper to change in your living room you know that's not like that's that's not proper human behavior and so obviously I have a mentor I have a sort of thought process and aesthetic that I love but then once you learn the the ethos of why the aesthetic why you love the aesthetic you dig deeper and then you know how to turn the wheel left or right so it's important you know that's why I often reference things I'm not ashamed that sort of recognize these great moments before us, but take anything and add it to the year 2017, it should be different. It should feel like we can collectively agree on it.

And that's what I focus on in a number of projects. So, sort of moving on a way, this is also like two weeks ago. In Milan, as the Prada Foundation was getting finished, happened to be there.

there meeting with Rem on a project that we're working on. And it was cool. It's like he's discovering this new building at the same time me and my friend are there.

So it was like a midway break through our conversation. I strictly love images like this and I'll show them for forever just because the generation of thinkers and designers and us are on earth at the same time. I think it's hyper critical that these loops get get made all the time, students and the people who basically wrote our textbooks.

And I'll keep striving to do this and just have conversation. So we spoke, and we got pretty, we're getting in depth. on obviously this idea, what he's working obviously with the countryside and that if half the world's population is living in cities, then what's happening in the countryside and how I'm articulating that is what I see in our sort of dynamic. I was just in Soho like an hour and a half ago. It was like there's so many stores are closed.

It was like Palace and there's like Mercer. The end of Mercer is like popping. But all of a sudden, I'm like, oh, all these vacant reasons. Literally half of downtown New York is just empty.

And it's like, we have Amazon. We're not even shopping as much. And me, I'm in fashion. So how I'm adopting to this whole idea of countryside, how is that going to change the hip relationship between cities and the countryside? Are kids now going to live in Montauk and then go into the cities on the weekend for entertainment?

Like- All you need a first floor retail for is basically eating. You don't need to shop. People aren't even shopping in that place. So the only reason why I bring out this sort of divergent tangent is because this inspires how you can design a t-shirt.

It helps me think of, again, do we need more chairs? So I would urge you guys always to think abstract and big. Countryside to city is.

It's macro, but it's giving me perspective on how to tackle other projects. Another super important for me is Donald Judd in terms of form. Me personally, I'm trying to find, even though I know my aesthetic, but I'm interested in the overall form that things are taking. And, you know, just another, like, I'm just putting these things out there for people who don't know to Google these names and read up on things besides hypebeast, essentially. But, you know, this is a great quote and it synergizes with...

with Henrik, who's like a design leader on my IKEA team. He's another mentor of mine. And he made a good point that struck me. He said, we're at an age where design is just assumed. He's like, you don't notice that a door handle doesn't work until it's broke.

He's like, but you forgot that it had been designed. So, you know, we're in a world where we just expect design. And obviously, this room has a higher sort of pension for what design is.

But it's everywhere and how can we as a collective make people make the outside you know tourists versus purists make the outside world understand that design is something to be cherished that's to me closer to quality of life than anything else so you know i think it's just important to be mindful of these things as you're doing your student projects you're working on your like extracurricular what your real passion project is is drawing these links all these things are just here as like mood board for tools for you guys to make your own list like I had at the beginning. And then also, like, you know, this is a point of crossing boundaries. Just because you're a furniture designer doesn't mean you can't be an artist or culinary chef, etc. And just studying his form, the way he was using different materials and approaches to execute, like, profound ideas. And it was all rooted in his system.

Bingo. Okay, Nike shoes. Which is cool, in the project that I've done so far, I haven't been able to nerd out on the actual process for that shoe or how these things came about. about.

It started for me, like, my own personal thing is I'm not a sneaker head. I just wear the same shoes for a really long time and then I just go on to another. But I understand passion for them and obviously i'm from chicago so michael jordan was our basketball player you know so for me the sort of resurgence of this like 85 vintage is where it started for from and of course like being entrusted with nike to sort of re-approach 10 different icons i took that like as like another major design project not like a sort of let's just color them up and put them back out into the market let's almost think about it like a student would, like how I would make a model of it.

And I sort of challenged them to... It was like an ethos that I had. I thought Nike products... The only thing that I could add to the situation is that I felt that their products came out of a microwave because they were so good.

It's sort of naive, but they're so perfectly put together. So this is the first illustrator that I did myself where I was like... It's like, I want to get the feeling of this, but something brand new.

And how does one go about that? And if you remember my seven principles about work in progress or illustrate it. And it was like, I took it with great responsibility that they asked me to approach their icons. And when you think of Nike, you quickly can say air. Which is what the, you know, a large part the whole ethos is based upon.

And I did like the naive question, curiosity thing is I grabbed one and I was like, in this Air Jordan, is there an air pocket? Because it didn't say, you know, I couldn't see it. And this predates their technology to sort of open the window. So I just took an X-Acto knife and jammed it in the bottom, realizing that there was air. And I was like, I'm going to write air in my language so that it reinforces the sort of ethos.

And then obviously this in process. This is how we ended up with a half-made shoe. As I want to mention, the iPhone is my tool. It's the only thing that I can...

I can have a conversation with you and work at the same time. So, of course, I do that too much. But, yeah, WhatsApp is my favorite program of choice.

And this air, the placement is all happening on my phone. So early prototype here before we were like getting the whole thing together. These are cool. Anyone from Converse here? A couple of kids?

Oh yeah. So you guys can't really properly see these. Do you anyone know who Jim Joe is?

He's the artist kid that did Drake's. He's like way important. He did many more things just besides that. But here's like a special edition he did. It's got a swoosh on it.

This is the original design intention. It basically Caused like a huge headache when I tried to pull this one off. My dream was that, I love like, like if you could make impossible product, like product that doesn't seem like it would make it through like a legal department.

That's like a... ongoing thing but since it was like what I thought the most important thing is it's Nike Inc going across the brands that they own which is huge so it's Air Jordan that's a different company Nike itself and Chuck Taylor a company that that they own, they're giving me 10 of them. So out of all 10, my dream was that you would do something that could only live within the 10 of those products.

So if anyone wondered, that's why there's like this woven label that's here. It was another one of my get out of legal sort of issues. I had them cut it as if it was the same as on this one. It was another Jim Joe Air Force One, one of one. art piece is my friend basically who inspires me so I have mentors that are like dead I have mentors that are 30 years older than me but I have mentors that are like 10 years younger than me and he's the friend of mine that sort of gave me the sort of nudge to just like write on things and sort of like don't be precious and I think this embodies that to it he like grabbed it and then just gave this back to me and I was like This is from Dover Street.

He just took it off the shelf and drew it and then put it back. And I was like, this is why I make stuff. It's to sort of spark an idea. I'll pass these around so you can guys steal them and I'll find you for sure.

Kid with the Ogg hat. Yeah, but I think it's important not to be precious. That's what this whole thing is. Like Nike, another dream project for me. And I was like, I have to hit this out of the park.

And all the architecture kids can sort of... of catch a vibe. A lot of this is like model making. That's where the, this is at the same time that I came up with that whole putting sculpture on a bag where that was like just me finding sort of new space. And that's when I was like, you know, a shoe.

Shoe isn't a shoe to me. I'm not approaching it as a shoe. And I think maybe that's why I found a little bit of open space, is that I was just looking at it like an object.

You can choose to wear it on your shoe. And that's kind of where sneaker culture had gone. These just sit above kids' beds, or they sit somewhere.

And I think they sit in boxes still. And I wanted to feel like they were already used when you got them. They're still precious, but they seem like objects.

This is where the presto came from. A kid named Matt Kilgore is like a genius. Nate Jobe and Rico is like a squad of kids. Like in a shop, just like you guys probably have here. This is why the soul turned out this color.

is because this is just a 3D printed soul. And this is actually an Air Max 90 that's turned inside out that got jammed back into it. And I was like, stop.

No one do anything else. It's done. It's done.

to Nike who's like can make a spaceship basically so that shoe literally that shoe exists because we were just like cutting around and making this so I'm proud of that vibe oh yeah that's that little like cut it's supposed to be Nike but that's as far as I could get them to do This is a shoe, this is the very first shoe that I made there, because I was like, I didn't come all this way from my first Nike meeting and not end up with anything to take home. I was like, where's the printer? You know, like, hey, can you, and I was like, that's what I do, is like, hey, can you do this?

Can you glue this here? And so, these are one of my favorite shoes. Just details. The process, I think, you know, you guys can see this and get inspiration off of it, but, you know, I know Iwana's a fan of model making.

Did you ever pull that trick off of getting a studio that only does model making? She's working on it. I'm going to take that class. Yeah, the versions of this shoe before it came out.

I don't know if I can show that. Yeah, that's the shoe I showed you before. The blazer did that on WhatsApp.

The idea that the swoosh was just like lower. You know those mistakes in Photoshop when you like put something over it? and you're like, oh, that looks cool. It's now on your feet.

Yeah, this is this. The first version. It's just like sort of one bullet point. That's sort of the process of how I work and the reason why it's a little bit like all over the place. I always thought if you worked linearly, then you have no room.

You know, do opposites. It just feels better. But then that space in between, gives you sort of a new experience that you can apply and problem solve. That's why I think I work on so many things at one time. I couldn't just do one project, like day in, day out.

I think it's actually not healthy. Women's show. This platform is super cool because when I do a fashion show, it's probably like the most amount of... It's one of the projects that I do. It takes like four months of thinking.

And people only see it for seven. minutes and no one ever has a conversation around it. It's usually like two interviews that I do and then it's off. But my last women's show in Paris was based around Princess Diana. And it was a tribute show just because I felt that she sort of predates our now.

To me, she's one of the most photographed women on the planet Earth. And it's sort of like in our periphery. But she's like a muse for my life.

modern dressing. The fact that she could go literally from something so formal to something so casual, had her own sense of style. There was no Instagram. There was no paparazzi. There's no outfits.

There's no stylist to sort of go do the daily errands. So I wanted to highlight that. It's like I have this brand Off-White only to tell stories. I don't have it to do traditional fashion because I don't know that.

I started from that Pyrex, like a hoodie. Who? The Caravaggio image.

But like I would think, and I promote, is like I was never going to be limited by hoodies and t-shirts, no matter how much it made sense. You can imagine how much advice that I had gotten. It's like, hey, just do that.

And it's like, no, I want to draw a line between that and the opposite. And that's the zigzag. So now I'm free to sort of like articulate stories.

And this too, drop that in there for you guys. But look at this whole outfit. Look at the image shot on film. The fact that it's universal. That's what I love.

You can tell. I love brands. Because it already gives you a starting point to tell another story or divert from that.

So these are the type of images that I was looking at. The Red Cross, even that. So a little known fact that I did is I did these pieces and I collaborated with the Red Cross. And I tried to collaborate with Harvard. didn't work but you know like donating back to charities that she was giving her time to so that her message could live on you know like there's no that's an architecture thing that's like literally an architect getting a program and deciding where and how big the room should be put me in fashion and i'm like wait i want to continue this one person's story because super like and the idea of hey using graphic t-shirts that's it a Red Cross off-white.

Like they exist now, and the proceeds are going back. So that's something super fulfilling to me that doesn't necessarily fit in any sort of post anywhere. And then obviously, what she meant, she was like Princess Diana, like a living Cinderella. So my show ended up looking like this, from that Pyrex hoodie champion that That wasn't my brand. All the way articulating to this image, which to me is just a five-year-old, five-year graduation of that same exact domino effect project.

All the handbags. This I did get legally cleared. Was, I took sort of like news tabloids or sort of all those sorts of things. And I was like, this is a version of a graphic t-shirt to me. It's the handbag.

with the logo that is a purse. And the thought process was like one of the most advanced personal concepts for fashion to me is like, put this in 2017, if she was... here with us, or the idea of people who live with paparazzi images of themselves, what's the one thing that a paparazzi mag might not do is promote a competing organization? Which was the whole...

ethos behind these handbags was like, you know, this is streetwear, my sort of art movement that I'm trying to claim as something advanced. But the idea to me that they make you laugh, it's got that tinge of irony in it. It's got that feeling like it's juxtaposing something else.

And it's not limiting me to the sort of streetwear 1.0, but that I can tell this narrative in a far off different space. So these are just images from the the show. This is derived from a tiara.

Obviously no one's going to wear one of those in a modern context. I was like, let's put it on the feet. Let's reimagine what high heels are. I did these all with Jimmy Choo. Got in a little bit of trouble for doing this.

I could only use Jimmy Choo shoes in the show. And I had all these Nike shoes. And I was like, can I just do two of them? Because this was based on when you're commuting.

like on the train and obviously women having to wear heels on the way to work you hold the heels in your hand and then wear sneakers but you know the ethos is obviously like all right on anything This is a show, super proud of it, because it sort of puts the needle where I want the women's wear for the collection to live. While the menswear or any other ideas that I've had since I've started can still live, but that's the ethos of Off-White. Both are Off-White, not one or the other. Yeah. Last show.

These, you can't really see them, but those heels, there's like, based on that sort of like glass slipper vibe, they all had plastic. Yeah, that's it. that they become objects again. And I show these images because you guys might be in your studios thinking that like, and it's not bad. I still practice architecture, not at the same pace or sort of point.

But your ideas are analogies. So your thought process could apply to something else that you might not even be thinking of. But hopefully, you see something like this, and it's like, oh, it's OK to start. to veer off and send a random email to a heel company or a random one to an eye glass, Warby Parker, whatever, before you know it, you'll be realizing ideas in different spaces. And that can inform what you're all about.

Yeah, street wear. So yeah, again, one of the later epiphanies that I've been having is that even in conversations like an analogy is something that works for us in a design sense you can use these same tools in different mediums and arrive at different results so keep that in mind yeah of course rap music oh okay so in that same vein of analogies of course i can't limit myself to just like ikea or nike really the idea behind this video Lil Uzi asked me to direct his music video and it might be different for you guys but my immediate reaction to anyone asking me anything is yes and then I'll think about it and usually I won't say no but 9 times out of 10 I should probably be like oh I'm busy or whatever but I just say yes and he had asked me to direct this video and I was like yeah let's do it and I hadn't even had the full idea yet but I know my seven principles are of this in-process thing. It's my signature.

It's the way that I realize concepts. So we shot this. This is the second video I've ever shot. The first one was Fashion Killa with ASAP Rocky and Rihanna. It was a long time ago.

Proud of that, too. All videos that I've shot take place in the Mercer Hotel, which is random, but it's a fact. This is like the director's edit that I made, which is like the purest form of the idea, basically before the record label adds a bunch of jazz.

But it's to showcase that, hey, if I'm asked or there's an opportunity to exist, it's not about building a building, sending a graphic for this, or oh, I only do that. It's like, keep that door open, and then you can make new works of art. in different spaces. So my way of capturing this sort of in-process moments that I put myself in the process.

So there's two points of view of this. This same sort of narrative, the reason why I showed the Princess Diana sort of project in this one is that I'm touching on the same social commentary part. Works of art that are distinctly made now influence with our penchant to like something, like see photos and press something. Princess Diana, that's literally the world that she lived in by being the most photographed.

Or the sort of like energy that happens outside. Prince and Mercer when there's famous people on the street, and then they just go through this mystical door, then no one breaks that barrier. So this video was about that.

Like, you can't, I'm not going to promote that. But basically, when those lines get crossed, and that's what this was. It was me just traveling from the street through to, you know, making it all the way up to this hotel room, but telling that modern narrative story.

that people want to sort of know more and get all the way up close to that information or synergy, just hang out with their favorite rap star or whatever. That line, what does it look like once that sort of barrier has been broken? So, you know, this sort of, like, video takes place.

You know, this, like, figurative all my friends are not alive wave. Yeah, but films, you know, like, moving. Moving imagery is such a good thing on the mood board. Not all mood boards should be like Tumblr images.

Yeah, that was the end. Got fined 3K for the blood. Again, so you know like this is mine.

I urge... Yeah, I always wanted to say this. Everyone's homework is before next class is to make their own design language. Literally I'm very upset that it took me I'm 37 so it took me this long to well I think it takes a lot of work and a lot of projects to define that you know yours might only be like two or three three at this point or it could be 13 but it's like if you it's like why work you know like what are you working towards you don't have you know you're either in or you're out like you could just just be chill but obviously I take a huge sort of passion about the creative work I do it's not even work it's just living for me but so the things that make it more tangible is that they make sense and that there's a lineage, at least that I'm focusing on a project, irreverent to whatever medium it is.

So in closing, basically put yourself in my shoes. It's super weird to have this light on me. I'm not that special. You guys, you have all the resources.

And this is like a message because obviously I'll be hanging out on the corner talking to kids that are aspirational. about doing something design work. And obviously, when they see me here, they're like, what? You're at Harvard. How come you don't come to wherever?

And the whole point, it's in my sort of presentation. It's not about one or the other. It's that we're all in this one big conversation.

So the whole point of this whole sort of presentation of just stuff that normally doesn't get shown is I'd rather share it to the world so that somebody takes it and spins it off. into something that is impactful for them. So with that, I need that converse Chuck Taylor back. Where is it? All right.

But, yeah, that was basically it. But I'm really, like, this one is you, you know? The idea that, you know, I don't know what your internal metric is for what your goals are. They should all be very different. but you guys are born A very awesome, distinct time.

Like, I think that this is the renaissance. Don't get sort of trapped into, like, this everything sucks, the world is, like, coming to an end. That's just, like, an internal mechanism, basically, to chill. When you don't have to put yourself out there.

You can like wake up every day and come up with excuses, but it's exactly the opposite. And I think you guys have an awesome education background. You guys are, you're intrigued enough to come hear this rambling of a bunch of random projects, but I know you guys, if you're interested in this, you guys are interested in tackling something that isn't seen yet.

So with that, I'm done. We'll have about 10 minutes for questions if you guys have any. There's two people with mics running.

Hi. Yeah. Hey, Richard.

Thanks for the amazing lecture and the product that you show. Well, I don't mind if you throw me a sneaker if I ask a bad question. So I'm going to go to the next one.

I actually watched the video, it called Crash Course that you did with Nike. Yeah. And I was the kid that you talked about that I was in the back of the live stream.

Oh. Well, okay. Let's go to the questions. So I might not be at the edge that you were the big fan of Michael Jordan, but I guess, well, I was at the edge that Aaron Iverson and Kobe Bryant, that was quite on the hill.

Stars, yeah. Yeah. So my question is too related to what Aaron Iverson was asking. I'm talking about practice.

Oh, that he doesn't need to practice, basically. Yeah. I mean, so I'm curious, like, what's, like, a routine practice that in your daily schedule that if you can talk deeper about it. That's a good question.

Because I don't know about, like, analogies of, like, you know, your brain as a muscle have to, like, work it out or whatever, something weird. But something that was super impactful to me as a Pyrex vision used to be. this tumblr that I had that I would photograph I just trained my eye to be creative limited to one thing that's what I'm doing now with the quotes but it's like I force do some random activity that forces your eye to sort of see things that it normally wouldn't that's for sure how I'm able to sort of like and I call when I idea and just iterating through like 13 things at one time until I can quickly get to an answer You can't do that if you're sort of casually being creative. You know, it's like if you have to like sit and you're like, oh, okay, I'm going to solve this problem.

You have to sort of like intertwine it with how you see the world. Like my friend Piot, he's like an art director for Off-White, showed me his friend. He's got this Instagram that he photographs like this one designer brand anytime he sees it. So the whole Instagram, so what it's done is it's trained his brain.

while he's casually doing something else, if he sees a black Chanel bag, just shoots it. And then all of a sudden, it's this running creative side. And I think if you want to find new space, if you want to get to another crescendo of design and having your brain figure out how to aesthetically put together something, you have to do it often.

And that's what I found myself. yeah good i guess um what's up virgil my name is peter from mathematic athletics um you you mentioned uh having mentors uh especially dead ones i'm trying to figure out um what's the best way And not like no sorcery stuff. Are you communicating? What type of questions are you asking? That you're asking mentors in the past that are in the long hit?

For me, the number one, before getting into the nuance, is why. I can think, it's like, why do we? We love rock and roll graphics or something. Like, why do we love hoodies? You know, why do we love designer something?

And that sort of gets the first nuance as to, like, the ethos. Like, every mentor I have or, like, someone that's passed, I look into their work, it seems like they have, like, a narrow view. And all the work that you love fits into this view. And I think it's a...

It's about having a dialogue with why you're making these decisions. There's certain sort of creative things that you decide before you even get to solving it. And that's why it's important to have somebody that you look up to and constantly conversate. And the most important thing is having someone edit your work.

Like, at this point, there's no wrong answer in design, but there's a right way to edit. And don't think about it in that sort of like, harsh way it's basically look at it as a communication art exercise like that's what design essentially is it's like i have these ideas in my head i put them in this inanimate object hopefully you get this long-winded speech and what what i've done is since i've you know i've made it my sort of practice that whole long 90 page sort of presentation was just i just gleamed out of that those seven bullet points so you guys got the cheat code but like this shoe is like so many details through that you can maybe get it and that that's probably why our conversation with all you guys that haven't met but if you see the shoe we're sort of like halfway talking and then i listed off like six mentors you know so in a nutshell that's like literally my whole brain on display okay last question yeah um what would you describe your defining moment moment like your aha moment as a designer um yeah it was the fact that there is no aha moment that's the one that tripped me up the most i still to this day i'm reluctant to call myself a designer because i believe that designers didn't look like me which is like a deeper that's like a bar you know like rapper you know like quavo comes up with he's like oh shit you know like but that that That was my biggest hurdle. And that's what I mean to tell.

That's the only, like, that's the main message that I'm delivering, is that most of these hurdles are self-imposed as designers. Like, they literally don't exist. There is no failure. Failure is, like, as real as, like, Halloween ghosts.

Do you know? And as a designer, I was always, like, I literally was, like, oh, I'm just going to work in an office. I'm going to work and be an assistant. to a bigger firm in architecture. And then on the weekends, I was going to DJ and be into Supreme shirts or something like that.

And go to Travis Scott shows or something. I was like, that's what life is, 9 to 5. And then the aha moment was like, wait, I can just put work out. And if it's good, it works. If it's bad, no one notices. And I can just get better at it.

And then I could run into a friend or a brand. and be like, hey, I got an idea. So that's the reality.

That's what I flew in peace out. The cool kids are out. But that's the reality that I wanted to fly here.

And it was really Awana's. Our text message is really good. But she had the foresight.

But I wanted to just come and just say those few things. And then hopefully you guys run with it. thank you yeah uh hey virgil yeah um so two quick questions um we'll ask the statement first i have a shirt for you um so first question is is yes or no quick uh can you sign my shoes after this second question is um if you want me to sign something i gotta leave in 10 minutes so i'll do it right now okay i'll walk i just gotta i gotta you gotta you gotta throw it you have to throw it from there and i have to catch it if i don't catch it All of these shoot.

I'll take five shoot. Hey, one of me. I'm going to be a decent human being. I'm going to be a decent human being and just leave mine right here.

I got a marker for you. I got a marker right here. This is going to keep going. Is the mic still on? Somebody make a video of this.

Transcript for:Virgil Abloh's Design Philosophy and Insights

Transcript for:
Virgil Abloh's Design Philosophy and Insights