Off-White’s Virgil Abloh started his brand to pursue architecture

Virgil Abloh started his fashion brand to pursue architecture.

The 40-year-old designer received a master’s degree in architecture from the Illinois Institute of Technology but created his brand, Off-White, to “investigate” architecture instead of following a traditional route.

He told Dezeen: “I don’t believe in disciplines. We can use our architecture brain and do many things, not just what we’re supposed to do.

“I started a career to make a brand to do architecture rather than just work at SOM, or wherever I would have naturally gone starting my architecture career. I made a brand to sort of investigate architecture in a way.”

Meanwhile, Virgil previously admitted he is being more productive than ever during the Covid-19 pandemic.

He said: “We need to show our resilience. This is the time to prove our industry is a valuable one. Not for a second will I cancel, or pause, or take time off the calendar … Everything on my end will proceed. I’m finding ways to work harder, more efficient. I’ve started another collection on top of the collection I was working on for June because I have more time. We’re at a position now where I think we can realign ourselves with listening to the consumer first and responding, instead of the previous model, which was sort of talking down [to the customer. It’s critical that we as designers and institutions and brands realign ourselves with the voice of the people today.

“That means what we traditionally know as a fashion image or an image to market or a video or a glimpse, I think can get more heartfelt. I think it can reflect the real public and humanity in a more seamless way rather than a projected idea of what a fashion image is or a marketing image is or a campaign is.”