Virgil Abloh grew up a middle-class, private-schooled skater kid, graduated college with a B.S. in civil engineering and a Master’s in architecture, and then switched gears to become an intern at Italian luxury giant Fendi.

But he still couldn’t get into a fashion show.

Virgil had been turned away at the door of fashion’s biggest brands often enough that he’d even perfected his strategy of circling the block to try again later. “We got into about 60 percent of those shows. Even when I just walked into a luxury store, people would look at me like I didn’t belong there,” he recounts.

But accustomed to not fitting in, Virgil plunged ahead. When he was hired as creative director of Kanye West’s creative agency, his art direction for “Watch the Throne” earned him a 2011 Grammy nomination for Best Recording Package. Such a major creative success gave him the confidence for solo experiments in fashion, which he began with $40 of Ralph Lauren deadstock that he screen-printed with his own designs and resold for over $550 a piece until he was hungry for something more.

And so, in 2013, his original brand Off-White c/o Virgil Abloh, the world’s first luxury label designed and owned by a black American, was born. The very next year, Off-White debuted at Paris Fashion Week, and has since become a global phenomenon with 10 standalone stores on 4 continents, and beat out the likes of Prada, Gucci, Balenciaga, and Versace to top the list of 2018’s hottest luxury brands. Virgil’s collaborations have included home goods for IKEA, kicks for Converse, museum exhibitions with famed Japanese artist Takashi Murakami…

…and that was all BEFORE he was tapped to become the first black person to ever serve as menswear artistic director of Louis Vuitton. He’s not only the first in LV’s 165-year history, but the third in leadership at ANY French heritage fashion house.

“When I was growing up, I didn’t know that I could be showing in Paris, because I didn’t see anyone doing that who looked like me. Now we are the establishment. I’m legitimately like, ‘Who can we empower next?’” The access to fashion’s upper echelons that Virgil was initially denied is a now hallmark of his brand. His runways are often streamed on his Instagram, he has fashion “How To” videos on his brand website, and under his creative guidance, black faces that might once have been turned away from fashion shows are now the symbol of luxury.

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