Off-White WeChat Capsule Collection

Virgil Abloh is a travelling man.  Since he launched his Off-White label back in 2013 his talents as an artist, designer, filmmaker, producer and DJ has taken him to all corners of the Earth.  The air miles he’s banked only increased when he was appointed creative director of menswear at Louis Vuitton in 2018.  It was only a few months ago that he held the most recent LV menswear show in Shanghai in what was one of the biggest shows of the (very strange) year.  It turns out that his fascination with China and its culture wasn’t a performative one-off.

Launching yesterday (Dec 17th), the new Off-White WeChat capsule collection of clothes and accessories brings a couple of firsts to Abloh’s fashion world.   The collection is the first for men and women to be released in Greater China and will be sold via Off-White’s first official WeChat Mini program.  No-one can deny the attraction to fashion businesses of the world’s largest and fastest growing fashion market – even during these times – but it would be wrong to dismiss this as just smart business.  It’s a move that also opens up a lot of new opportunities for creative influence and discovery and, when you have travelled as much as Abloh has, new and undiscovered creative landscapes must be akin to finding the Holy Grail.  Or one of them at least.

Leaning on those new influences, Abloh reimagines the established Off-Withe codes to bring together a trifecta of new ideas that hold this new collection together as one coherent story.  Stonewash denim makes a return to high fashion with pieces further embellished with hand-applied paint marks and spatters to give each one a unique ‘signature’ from the man in the chair himself.  Next, much of the collection features a special laser printing technique that, when used on some of the other denim pieces, results in an unusual and eye-catching uniform check pattern in shades of blues – a nod to the colours seen in one of Abloh’s first womenswear shows back in 2016.  Finally, it wouldn’t be an Off-White collection without the jersey and fleece staples.  Only here each one has been printed with a new version of the label’s famous arrow graphic but cleverly designed to look like pieces of iridescent tape that have been quickly pieced together to form the shape.  If this is what China did for Abloh’s overall creativity in 2020 then look for more Shanghai surprises coming your way in 2021.

If you’re in China look for the Off-White WeChat Mini Program to find out more about this collection.

For the rest of us, click here to find out more information on Off-White.

Click here for our last feature with Off-White.