Virgil Abloh has joined the 'Ethical Fashion' podcast.
Virgil Abloh
The 40-year-old fashion designer appeared alongside hosts Simone Cipriani and Clare Press on the sustainable fashion show as the first-ever guest for its second season on Thursday (25.03.21).
Speaking in the episode, the artistic director of Louis Vuitton's men's wear collection and Off-White CEO spoke of the power of social media.
He said: “An Instagram post is as much of an artwork as a 300-look fashion collection. Something I made 20 years ago as a student — like my thesis [on] architecture … is just as valid as a new Nike shoe. There is no hierarchy.”
Elsewhere, the fashion muse explained that the reason he included the traditional Ghanaian textile, kente cloth, made of handwoven cloth strips of silk and cotton, in Louis Vuitton's show, was to show there should be a place for different cultures and traditions on the catwalk in order to not alienate people and make them feel like their history "isn’t part of the ecosystem".
He shared: “When my dad would go to a graduation or when we had Ghana Fest in Chicago, him and all his friends would get together. He wouldn’t wear a suit, he wouldn’t wear a European suit, he would wear kente cloth … and that is a fact of my reality; it’s not pop culture.
"The reason why I put it in the Louis Vuitton show is because not sharing cultures on that stage gives people complexes and makes people think their culture isn’t part of the ecosystem … And me, if I was 14 years old and I saw a Louis Vuitton show with that music and that style and that flair, and I saw people wearing kente — I might not have been so private with my cultural heritage.”