The name Virgil Abloh has been floating around the internet for the past couple of weeks. Abloh was recently named Louis Vuitton’s new artistic director for their menswear division. It’s typical for the fashion community to buzz about a “changing of the guards” at a fashion house, but Abloh’s name has permeated into the mainstream. Why is this appointment different than the others? To put it simply, it’s making history.

Story by Lauren Cook

Louis Vuitton’s hiring of streetwear designer Virgil Abloh signals the advent of a paradigm shift happening in the fashion industry. For hundreds of years before streetwear’s inception in the late 1980s, there was a distinct difference in the clothes of the rich and the poor. Clothes were a way of showing your status to the world in just a glance.  It had been a reliable way to distinguish between classes until recently. Streetwear has its origins in skate and hip-hop influences of the ‘80s and ‘90s. Back then, if you wore streetwear, it was because you were apart of those communities. The original wearers of streetwear were not elites of any kind. The only time you would catch a celebrity wearing streetwear would be if they were a rapper like Tupac or Biggie. In recent years, however, streetwear has become more and more the style of choice among the elite. It is not no longer uncommon to see celebs with no real connection to the streets or hip-hop and skate communities rocking brands like Joyrich or BAPE. In contrast, modern day rappers have also taken a hold to more luxury brands like Gucci, Balmain and Cartier. We are entering an age where society is ditching some of its past held social norms and folkways, and it’s being reflected in our clothing choices as well. It is one of the first times that the world has seen the clothes of middle to lower class people become high-end and desirable to those in the highest tax bracket.

The line between streetwear and luxury has begun to blur and with a long-established, influential brand like Louis Vuitton taking hold of the style, it is almost certain that streetwear will be the dominating choice of fashion for years to come. In just this past year, Louis Vuitton collaborated with streetwear brand Supreme for their fall-winter 2017 collection. The collaboration amassed great success for the brand, and it seems that by hiring Abloh, Louis Vuitton is hoping to become a trailblazer in the streetwear-turned-luxury sector.

In regard to Abloh himself, it is important to note his own successes. Unlike many modern-day designers, Abloh did not get formal training at an art school, but rather, a degree in civil engineering and architecture. From there he met Kanye West and the two interned at Fendi before Abloh went off to start his brand, Pyrex Vision, which he would later scrap for the wildly more successful Off-White. As he continued in his career, Abloh and his brand grew to become one of the most well-known and successful brands in streetwear, so it is no wonder Louis Vuitton chose him to steer the brand in their new territory.

But that’s not all. Having a black man become the one of the first leaders in a new territory is something inspiring for all young black designers and creators to see. It may have taken a while for there to have even been an African American artistic director at Louis Vuitton, but Abloh is also the first artistic director after Kim Jones, who introduced streetwear to LV, to continue on with the brand’s streetwear vision. This is not to say that there aren’t still issues in the fashion industry, though. Other than Abloh, Olivier Rousteing of Balmain is the only other black man that currently holds a director title at a major fashion house. Nevertheless, this is still progress, and a hopeful indicator that things in the industry really are changing to greater include the marginalized communities that often are the reason why new trends exist. So for now, let’s celebrate as we watch the entrance of a new era.