Make It Ours
Crashing the Gates of Culture with Virgil Abloh
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3.8 • 4 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
“An illuminating . . . biography and cultural history” (The New York Times) of Virgil Abloh’s iconic rise to the top of the fashion industry, which embodied a groundbreaking transformation of the relationship between who we are and what we wear.
“[Robin Givhan] captures that shift with the kind of clarity and nuance that honors the late designers’ many layers. There’s never been a book like this.”—Essence
A WASHINGTON POST AND NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
Virgil Abloh’s appointment as head of menswear for Louis Vuitton in 2018 shocked the fashion industry, as he became the first Black designer to serve as artistic director in the brand’s 164-year history. But as Pulitzer Prize–winning culture critic Robin Givhan reveals, Abloh’s story encompasses so much more than his own journey.
Using Abloh’s surprising path to the top of the luxury establishment, Givhan unfolds the larger story of how the cloistered, exclusive fashion world faced a revolution from below in the form of streetwear and designers unafraid to storm the gates—how their notions of what was luxury simultaneously anticipated and upended consumer preferences, and how a simple T-shirt held as much cultural power as a haute couture gown. As Givhan relays, Abloh rose during a time of existential angst for a fashion industry trying to make sense of its responsibilities to a diverse audience and the challenges of selling status to a generation of consumers who fetishized sneakers and prioritized comfort. The story of how that moment came to be, and how someone like Abloh—who had no formal training in pattern-making or tailoring—could come to symbolize and embody the industry’s way forward, is the story at the heart of this book.
Make It Ours is at once a remarkable biography of a singular creative force and a powerful meditation on fashion and race, taste and exclusivity, genius and luxury. With access to Abloh’s family, friends, collaborators, and contemporaries, and featuring a cast of fascinating characters ranging from visionary Black designers like Ozwald Boateng to Abloh’s mercurial but critical employer and mentor Kanye West, Givhan weaves a spellbinding tale of a young man’s rise amid a cultural moment that would upend a century’s worth of ideas about luxury and taste.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Virgil Abloh made an astounding impact on the culture of luxury fashion as the first Black artistic director of Louis Vuitton’s menswear line. In this expansive biography, Robin Givhan gives us a meticulously detailed look at Abloh’s story. And we mean detailed; her approach here is all about context. In one example, she gives us a mini deep dive into the racial history of Abloh’s Illinois hometown that’s genuinely enlightening. Later, she digs into the uniquely inspired state of high-end fashion in the late ’90s, right when Abloh first began reading fashion magazines at his local bookstore as a teen. From Abloh’s education (which included a master’s in architecture) to his collaborations with hip-hop stars to the launch of his own fashion label, Off-White, Givhan provides insights about his projects and quotes from his peers that help us better understand the workings of this uniquely innovative mind. Though Abloh’s life tragically ended at 41, Make It Ours shows us why his influence will be felt for generations.
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.
