Street Wear Assignment - Virgil Abloh

VIRGIL ABLOH

SYNOPSIS
Street wear style of fashion is a mixture of California skateboarding, Japanese Street
fashion, hip hop and modern culture. Normally the casual and comfortable jeans or t-shirt
with sneakers was generally accepted in Los Angeles by the late 1970’s and 1980’s. This
research considers the impact of street wear on the fashion industry and how luxury brands
are evolving with them. The research looks specifically at Virgil Abloh who is from the
generation of young designer who made a name for themselves within hip hop’s fashion
industry and now he is the head of a luxury brand named Louis Vuitton. In 2013 he founded
his own fashion house name Off-White, in Milan-based where he was working as chief
executive officer (CEO). With Kanye West who is rapper Virgil Abloh did his internship at
Fendi. Then Virgil Abloh was named as one among 100 most influential people in world in
2018. So in eliminating these differences Hip Hop fashion and style raised as sound, brave
and completely new form of art while many of the critics calling it as violent, vulgar,
misogynistic, materialistic, racist and homophobic. In the end it could be concluded that if
anyone is celebrating diversity within fashion industry then this could be regarded to as very
much early as there are many gems who are about to come forward. As it is also noted out
from this whole report that only 3 black men making it to as creative directors in such big
fashion house and industry is sign of achievement.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am grateful to all of those with whom I have had the pleasure to work during the
project related to Virgil Abloh and other related project. Each of the members of my
Dissertation Committee has provided me extensive personal and professional guidance and
taught me a great deal about both scientific research and life in general. Nobody has been
more important to me in the pursuit of this project than the members of my family. I would
like to thank my parents, whose love and guidance are with me in whatever I pursue. They
are the ultimate role models. As my teacher and mentor, he has taught me more than I could
ever give him credit for here. He has shown me, by his example, what a good scientist (and
person) should be.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION.....................................................................................................................5
1.1 Background of research...................................................................................................5
1.2 History hip hop culture into fashion................................................................................6
1.3 Virgil Abloh.....................................................................................................................7
CHAPTER 1..............................................................................................................................8
Hip pop culture.......................................................................................................................8
Impact of hip pop culture into fashion...................................................................................9
CHAPTER 2............................................................................................................................13
Street wears..........................................................................................................................13
Street wears evolving into high ends fashion.......................................................................13
CHAPTER 3............................................................................................................................17
Virgil Abloh.........................................................................................................................17
Virgil Abloh vision for street wear......................................................................................18
CONCLUSION........................................................................................................................22
REFERENCES.........................................................................................................................23

INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of research
Street wear style of fashion is a mixture of California stakeboarding, Japanese Street
fashion, hip hop and modern culture. Normally the casual and comfortable jeans or t-shirt
with sneakers was generally accepted in Los Angeles by the late 1970’s and 1980’s (What is
street wear fashion, 2018). There is a number of street wear fashion brands working and
currently operating at global level including Ocean Pacific, Off Shore and Life’s a Beach.
While on other hand luxury brands mean those brands in clothing which symbolise class,
standard and elite which is affiliated with luxury, high price and quality (Bain, 2018).
Example of one of most luxury brands in clothing is those of Tommy Hilfiger, Louis Vuitton
and Burberry.
Luxurious fashion and clothing brands are now collaborating with other street wear
labels like that of Vetements and Supreme. These is mainly done by the luxury brand as they
want something new and cool in their fashion, which will attract customers. During the
Autumn and Winter collection of 2017 (AW2017), Louis Vuitton introduced six pop up
shops that for a limited time only at which they announced a street wear label. All after this
various other brands like that Tommy Hilfiger, Supreme and Vetements also introduced street
wear collection by the partnership with street wear fashion houses. Virgil Abloh, who is
regarded to as the most famous fashion designer in the category of street wear collection,
joined as CEO at Louis Vuitton which is one of the luxurious fashion brand.
This research considers the impact of street wear on the fashion industry and how
luxury brands are evolving with them. The research looks specifically at Virgil Abloh who is
from the generation of young designer who made a name for themselves within hip hop’s
fashion industry and now he is the head of a luxury brand named Louis Vuitton (About Virgil
Abloh, 2018). He is changing the collection from cool and easy to wear street fashion that a
new generation of consumers want. The research paper is also covering impact of Virgil on
fashion industry as he is the first African American to reach such great post. He is also
inspiration for youth of his region and impacting the high end fashion industry with his hip
hop cultural.
Aim
To analysis the impact of street wears in respect to Virgil Abloh within the fashion
industry especially on luxury brands.
Objective

 To analysis the impact of hip pop culture into fashion
 To investigate street wears evolving into high end fashion
 To discuss Virgil Abloh’s vision for street wear
Rationale
When Virgil Abloh became artistic director of Louis Vuitton it marked as major step
into the fashion industry, as he was the first black person to be a part of such a large luxury
brand in its 164 year history. He is considered to as prince of hip hop design who is ascended
onto throne of major French fashion label as director of Louis Vuitton men’s wear collection.
Abloh is the first black man making debut of his career he is also first man at this position
who is not belonging to New York City but is from Illinois. So this research is mostly based
on development of Virgil Abloh the modern vision of luxurious brands entering into fashion
industry. It is very important to find out the impact of hip pop culture into fashion industry as
the street wear is evolving into high end fashion. The impact and role in this increase in trend
and demand of street wear of Virgil Abloh is very important to study so that future of fashion
industry could be analysed.
Research question
1. What is the impact of hip pop culture into fashion?
2. How street wear evolved into high ends fashion?
3. What is Virgil Abloh vision for street wear?
1.2 History hip hop culture into fashion
Hip hop fashion is mainly complementing all attitudes, expression and style of
wearing clothes. This type of fashion is prominently changing since the time of its invention
in late 1970’s and 1980’s and this is now one of the most popular type of fashion all across
world and especially among people. This is also called to as big fashion which is having very
different style of wearing cloths it originate in New York City, Africa and Latin America.
Thereafter, it has grown to later parts of world including like that of Atlanta, San Francisco,
Chicago, Houston and Virginia (Sulima, 2018). In the year 1960 when Black Arts Movement
started it showed the cultural dress within the mixture of modern fashion and West African
tradition clothing in creating African- American traditional style. In early 1990’s this type of
fashion evolved gradually after 1980 when people began to get affected by traditional
African-American culture or dressing style. This includes larger pants, brighter colour and
head cap or other accessories. In 1989, Cross Colour was recognized as a first street wear
brand with the tagline of Clothes without prejudice. Cross Colour was mainly targeting the