Fashion designer Virgil Abloh has passed away

After studying civil engineering and architecture, Virgil Abloh found his way into graphic and fashion design via an internship at the fashion house Fendi. The US American's designs, partly in collaboration with fashion designer and music producer Kanye West, quickly became successful – as did the luxury streetwear label Off-White, which he started as an art project. In product and furniture design, for example, his cooperation with IKEA for the "Markerad" collection attracted attention, the chrome-plating of the famous wall installation by Dieter Rams polarised. For Vitra, he created his vision of a home of the future in the form of the futuristic installation Twentythirtyfive and reinterpreted three designs by Jean Prouvé as limited-edition spin-offs. In this way, he placed the works of old masters in a new light, across supposed boundaries and precisely for a young target group. Abloh understood how to combine everyday life and luxury in visionary works with high recognition value and strong resonance. "Virgil was driven by his dedication to his craft and to his mission to open dorrs for others and create pathways for greater equality in art and design", the statement reads. "There is no line between a designer and consumer," he himself once said. (am)