Virgil Abloh gives sneak peek of IKEA collaboration

OHMYGOSSIP — Virgil Abloh wants to bridge “the gap” between fashion and art with his IKEA collaboration.
The 38-year-old designer rose to fame in the fashion industry by combining urban streetwear and high-fashion with his own brand Off-White – worn by the likes of Hailey Baldwin, Justin Bieber, Gigi Hadid and Kendall Jenner – and announced the collection Swedish furniture company IKEA in June 2017, but little was known about the collaboration until a live broadcast unveiling the “works in progress” on Tuesday (01.04.18).
Virgil – who was named artistic director for menswear at Louis Vuitton in March – said the broadcast was a “powerful tool” to inspire people’s creativity and give an insight into the product design process which.
He said: “Growing up, I studied architecture and was into music, but I always felt there was a gap between the things that I loved and consumed – who made them, how they made them – so that was a premise that I gave to my design process, it’s a powerful tool to get people into design if they simply can see the process in our meetings.”
In the broadcast, products such as the IKEA Frakta shopping tote was shown in an updated beige hue rather than the signature blue and yellow as well as slogan rugs reading “Keep Off” and “Blue” in IKEA’s Älmhult prototype shop were shown to excited fans, but Virgil is adamant his passion for his first homeware project doesn’t make it feel “like work”.
He said: “Time isn’t a factor. The best use of my time is to breed new ideas and build bridges between ideas … It’s all fulfilling, it’s not work.”
“I’m questioning objects by using text to re-programme them and re-contextualise them.”

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