Virgil Abloh on Streetwear in the 2020s: ‘I Would Definitely Say It’s Gonna Die’
Written by SOURCE on December 17, 2019
The very idea of streetwear is going to “die” at some point this coming decade, at least according to Virgil Abloh‘s predictive assessment.
Speaking with Dazed for a dual year-end/decade-end interview, the Off-White CEO and current artistic director of menswear at Louis Vuitton was asked to explain what he thinks will happen to “the idea of streetwear” in the 2020s. By Abloh’s guess, the next decade will bring about a renewed approach to the concept of vintage and a sense of finality regarding streetwear.
“I would definitely say it’s gonna die, you know?” Abloh said. “Like, its time will be up. In my mind, how many more t-shirts can we own, how many more hoodies, how many sneakers? I think that like we’re gonna hit this like, really awesome state of expressing your knowledge and personal style with vintage—there are so many clothes that are cool that are in vintage shops and it’s just about wearing them. I think that fashion is gonna go away from buying a boxfresh something; it’ll be like, hey I’m gonna go into my archive.”
The interview also sees Abloh reflecting on the industry-altering trajectory his own career has taken over the past 10 years. “I was at this point in fashion where my contemporaries and my friends, like Shayne from Hood By Air—who’s super important to the narrative—were painting this picture of what’s to come,” Abloh said of the early, defining years. “At that time, the formal press was only just categorizing that type of design as ‘streetwear’; as a designer, you get confronted with the term of your generation which you have no control over.”
From there, Abloh explained, he and his contemporaries decided to focus on the need for them to define exactly what “streetwear” would mean for an entire generation. Read the full piece here.
Abloh’s 2020 plans, meanwhile, thus far include a Louis Vuitton x NIGO® capsule collection and an Off-White flagship “store” in Miami. But first, we’ll be getting Small Problems:
