Virgil Abloh was fashion’s most frequent flyer, a multi-hyphenate creative director, DJ, architect, serial collaborator, and amplifier for the voices of the Black community. The man was not earthbound. So it makes a sort of sense that since his sudden passing last November we’ve been visited by a drone kite and runway angels.

After two tributes to Abloh at Louis Vuitton—the first in Miami just two days after he died and the second here in Paris last month—this posthumous Off-White show registered more as a celebration.

But first up was the ready-to-wear. The show opened with snippets from an interview Pharrell Williams did in 2020. “Share the codes… share the cheat codes. A lot of us had to figure it out ourselves… that’s where we go wrong,” he said. “The more of us that learn the codes, the stronger we are.” Arguably, Code sharing was what went down on the runway, a sort of lesson in Abloh-isms from elevated hoodies to the mad pockets of his cargo gear to the mid-layer garments that made such waves on the red carpet to letterman jackets to the “quotes” branding he was so famous for. Here he saved his biggest statement for a pair of white flags printed with the phrase, “Question Everything.”

And why not launch couture? Abloh wasn’t at a loss for ideas, as the extensive show program reminded us.

Full Off-White Review - a must read by Vogue | Nicole Phelps