First Louis Vuitton Campaign by Virgil Abloh Released

As new accusations of copying other people’s work are flying as they are wont to do after shows from artistic director of both Louis Vuitton and Off-White, Virgil Abloh, I would like to start of this article with an image taken from my treasured little booklet called The Incidents: '“INSERT COMPLICATED TITLE HERE” by that same Virgil Abloh. It’s a transcript of the very interesting speech he gave at Harvard University Graduate School of Design in which he discusses his infamous 3% rule.

The Incidents “INSERT COMPLICATED TITLE HERE” by Virgil Abloh p. 21

Can’t accuse him of being anything if not transparent.

Mere days after his sophomore collection walked the Parisian runway against a backdrop that depicted an NYC burrough and had Futura 2000 and Rob Cristofaro (Alife) making live artwork, Virgil Abloh is releasing his first ever advertising campaign for Louis Vuitton.

Image by Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin for Louis Vuitton c/o Virgil Abloh

The campaign consists of three different series shot by three different photographers. One is shot by Algerian multimedia artist Mohamed Bourouissa, another by Inez Van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin and the third one by Dutchman Raimond Wouda.

Abloh stated to WWD:

“I’m not content with just designing clothes. I am more enamored with providing a premise of why my designs exist. Today it’s the context that is the punctuation on the object,” Abloh said in a statement provided exclusively to WWD, explaining his concept of campaign as manifesto.

“With the campaign, I wanted to make something that is universal and human at the core. Inclusive and dense, something that has gravity. So I decided I was going to focus the campaign on boyhood, not menswear. What makes men? The different stages in one’s life, from infancy all the way through teenager, adolescent, young adult to adult.”

Image by Mohamed Bourouissa: Virgil Abloh surrounded by members of his team, social circle and models

Image by Raimond Wouda for Louis Vuitton c/o Virgil Abloh

According to Louis Vuitton chief executive officer Michael Burke and WWD, the first collection by Virgil Abloh, which dropped on January 18 2019, has sold over $1.5 million of product on the first day at its flagship on Rodeo Drive in Los Angeles and a pop-up in Tokyo that opened earlier this month raked in 30 percent more in the first 48 hours than Vuitton’s collaborative collection with Supreme.