On the occasion of her new Virgil Abloh biography, legendary critic Robin Givhan opens up about the late designer and how he remapped the world of fashion. Written by: J Wortham In 2021, the art and fashion world was rocked by the news that Virgil Abloh, designer and entrepreneur, had died of cancer at the age of 41. Now, nearly five years later, a biography emerges from the legendary fashion writer Robin Givhan. Robin Givhan © Kevin J. Miyazaki 2024. Above image: Virgil Abloh in Paris, 2019. (Photo by Matthew Sperzel/Getty Images)At times, Abloh’s work had more in common with conceptual artists like David Hammons than it did with a traditional designer. He often commented on the fashion industry as much as he contributed to it. He was an admirer of the French sculptor Marcel Duchamp, who famously asked that a porcelain urinal be considered art. Abloh also liked to play with mass-produced and widely available objects, often called “readymades,” deconstructing and upending our notions of fashion, wealth, culture, and luxury. He was a polyglot, a true multihypenate who designed merchandise for Kanye West, art directed albums for A$AP Rocky, blogged, and DJ’d. His first label, Pyrex Vision, was a Tumblr fever dream of music, art, fashion, and street culture. The line went viral for screenprinting on old Ralph Lauren deadstock and marking it up 700% to $550, which revealed a wry philosophy that toyed with cachet over craftmanship. He held appointments at Nike and eventually he started Off-White, his own luxury streetwear line, before being appointed creative director at Louis Vuitton in 2018. Givhan is a legendary fashion writer, known for her incisive and unflinching eye (she once described seafoam green and pale coral as “wimpy and spineless,” in a Reddit AMA, of all places. #Godtier.) In some ways, her career mirrors parts of Abloh’s: They were both outsiders to the fashion industry who made names for themselves with devotion to their crafts and gently bending tradit