Make It Ours
Crashing the Gates of Culture with Virgil Abloh
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, The New Yorker, Elle
From Pulitzer Prize-winning culture critic Robin Givhan comes a groundbreaking chronicle of the legacy of Virgil Abloh, whose iconic rise to the top of the fashion industry transformed our ideas about the connection between who we are and what we wear
'Captivating and beautifully written' Tom Ford
'Thoughtful, intelligent, honest and masterfully crafted' Marc Jacobs
'A thrilling journey into the mind of a genius.' Edward Enninful
'A must-read' Elaine Welteroth
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In the spring of 2018, Louis Vuitton sent shockwaves around the fashion industry. They appointed Virgil Abloh, a designer with no formal training, to be the head of menswear and the first Black artistic director in the brand's 164-year history - a cultural moment that would upend a century's worth of ideas about luxury and taste.
Using one man's remarkable path to the top of the luxury establishment, Make It Ours uncovers the larger story of how the cloistered, exclusive fashion world faced a revolution from below, dressed in puffer jackets and sneakers. From the designers emboldened to storm the gates, to the simple T-shirt coming to hold as much cultural power as an haute couture gown, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Robin Givhan chronicles how Abloh propelled an entire industry forward.
With unparalleled access to Abloh's family, friends, collaborators, and contemporaries like Ozwald Boateng and Abloh's mercurial but critical employer and mentor Kanye West, Givhan weaves a spellbinding biography of a singular creative force and a powerful meditation on fashion and race, taste and exclusivity, genius and luxury.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This bracing account from Pulitzer Prize–winning critic Givhan (The Battle of Versailles) explores how designer Virgil Abloh, who died of cancer at age 41 in 2021, transformed the fashion world. Growing up in Rockford, Ill., Abloh straddled disparate worlds and traditions, embracing hip-hop fashion as enthusiastically as he did the preppy uniforms he wore to his Catholic high school. An architect by training, Abloh began his fashion career in 2012 with the T-shirt brand Pyrex Vision, for which he created pieces that generated meaning by placing old items in new contexts. For instance, Givhan argues that Abloh's customizations of Ralph Lauren flannels juxtaposed his background as the son of Ghanaian immigrants with the brand's blue-blooded reputation, implying that "the Dream was more valuable because of his contribution to it." Elsewhere, Givhan offers detailed accounts of Abloh's working relationship with Kanye West, whom Abloh designed stage sets and album covers for, and his appointment as the first Black artistic director of Louis Vuitton, where he reimagined luxury for a more diverse customer base. The sharp blend of biography, cultural history, and fashion criticism makes effective use of Abloh's story to speak to a recent tectonic shift inside the fashion industry as it reconsiders the meaning of luxury and who gets to decide. The result is an excellent testament to Abloh's enduring influence.
