PARIS (dpa-AFX) - Luxury products maker LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton (LVMHF.PK, LVMUY.PK) said Sunday that designer Virgil Abloh, the men's artistic director at Louis Vuitton since 2018 and founder of label Off-White, has died after a battle with cancer. He was 41.
'We are all shocked after this terrible news. Virgil was not only a genius designer, a visionary, he was also a man with a beautiful soul and great wisdom,' Bernard Arnault, LVMH Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.
According to reports, for the last two years, Abloh battled cardiac angiosarcoma, a rare form of cancer in which a tumor occurs in the heart.
In July 2021, LVMH had acquired a majority stake in Off-White LLC, the trademark owner of Off-White, of which Virgil Abloh was the founder and Artistic Director since 2013. Additionally, LVMH and Abloh had announced the expansion of their relationship to launch new brands and partner with existing ones in a variety of sectors beyond the realm of fashion.
Born in Rockford, Illinois in 1980, Virgil Abloh was an artist, architect, engineer, creative director, and designer. After earning a degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Wisconsin Madison, he completed a Master's Degree in Architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology in a curriculum founded by Mies van der Rohe.
Virgil Abloh's brand Off-White c/o Virgil Abloh was started in 2012 as an artwork titled 'PYREX VISION.' In 2013, the brand premiered a seasonal men's and women's fashion label showing runway collections during Paris Fashion Week since 2015.
Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX
© 2021 AFX News
