Sotheby's Will Auction 200 Pairs of Louis Vuitton and Nike ‘Air Force 1’ by Virgil Abloh

For more info about the scholarship fund and some of Virgil’s students, read The Cut’s article published after his passing, in December 2021.

Sotheby's Will Auction 200 Pairs of Louis Vuitton and Nike ‘Air Force 1’ by Virgil Abloh, to Support The Virgil Abloh™ “Post-Modern” Scholarship Fund AOC Art of Living

Sotheby's is proud to present The Louis Vuitton and Nike “Air Force 1” by Virgil Abloh, a special global online auction of the highly coveted Nike x Louis Vuitton “Air Force 1" sold to benefit The Virgil Abloh™ “Post-Modern” Scholarship Fund, an organization that aims to foster equity and inclusion within the fashion industry by providing scholarships to academically promising students of Black, African American, or African descent.

The auction marks the first-ever release of the Louis Vuitton and Nike “Air Force 1” by Virgil Abloh created for the Louis Vuitton Spring-Summer 2022 Collection. Prior to his passing on 28 November 2021, the Louis Vuitton Men’s Artistic Director was involved in the early organization of the auction and its surrounding events. The auction will take place in association with his family.

Each pair will be sold with a Louis Vuitton pilot case in orange Taurillon Monogram Leather (exclusive to this auction), which was likewise featured in the collection.

Starting from the launch of the auction, the shoes and the pilot case will be exhibited at Sotheby’s New York. Visitors are welcome to view the exhibit free of charge, and can make an appointment to do so through our reservation page.

A total of 200 pairs of the Nike “Air Force 1” – originally created for the Louis Vuitton Spring-Summer 2022 Men’s Collection – is being made available in an exclusive colorway and a range of sizes.

LV x NBA: AOC Catches Up With a Brilliant Virgil Abloh 'For the Ages' Collaboration

AOC is working to define the key creative concepts of the esteemed and beloved, now departed into the cosmos, Louis Vuitton Men’s Artistic Director Virgil Abloh. At no point did we cover Abloh’s work with the NBA.

Looking Back to Move Forward

Rather than just post-date articles into the past — which we typically do in posting archival material, in order to keep the model, photographers and now brand archives sequential by date — AOC shares this new article about a collection that actually debuted in May 2021. More will come.

Pretend you are reading this article, as we would have written it, had we known about the second LV x NBA collaboration [or the first one!!!]. Having just looked at three collections — this one is the second drop — the product design is just gorgeous.

We will pull together other elements of the collab, because AOC’s marketing/branding instincts are having a big WOW moment over this concept.

Note also that the $2200 late May drop basketball that AOC references at the end of this article is now on sale at Sotheby’s for $8000. This discovery prompted me to ask Google if Sotheby’s is now in the resale market, as opposed to exclusively bidding auctions. The answer is “yes”. Read on.

AOC Writes About a May 2021 LV x NBA Drop

Louis Vuitton sharee its second collection created in collaboration with the NBA called Louis Vuitton x Capsule Collection II in May 2021.

LV artistic director Virgil Abloh delivered a collection that merges American sports and fine French craftsmanship, as well as uniting the signature emblems of the two iconic institutions in a sophisticated and male elegance way.

Abloh referred to the process as “transversal”, a concept fundamental to his design approach in fashion as well as architecture.

In geometry, a transversal is a line that passes through two lines in the same plane at two distinct points. If the angles created by the intersection are identical, then the lines are running technically parallel in geometry-speak. Abloh sought to create ideas that intersect seemingly parallel lines not automatically guaranteed to intersect at some future point. He created the intersection of seemingly ‘of little interest to each other ‘entities.

The three-year partnership between the NBA and Louis Vuitton was announced in January 2020.

“Fashion muses aren’t predictable. Ideas of luxury can be found in the sports world and its champions as much as in traditional forms of artistry. This collection celebrates the cultural contribution of basketball and its diverse characters, and the idea of relatability as a force of unity today,” Abloh said in announcing the exciting collab.

The second LV x NBA collection for Pre Fall 21 alluded to the way basketball players dress as they travel to games, conduct their many business affairs off the court and often speak at press conferences. Many NBA players manage businesses directly related to their sports prowess, but also in unrelated categories like real estate. Many are investors in major new business concepts and especially ones looking for seed money — translated startups.

Louis Vuitton hopes that NBA fans will identify with and support the collab, rich in sophisticated merchandise that goes far beyond the mass market concept of NBA merchandising.

NBA Playoff Winners Meet Louis Vuitton Trunk Makers

WWD reported, when the project was announced in early 2020, that The Larry O’Brien Trophy, presented annually to the NBA team that wins the final championship game, “now travels in a case custom-made by six craftsmen working more than 100 hours at the Vuitton workshops in the Paris suburb of Asnières. Coated in the house’s signature monogram canvas, it is lined with microfiber in the NBA’s trademark blue.”

In another brilliant move, Vuitton has created a matching double-door wardrobe trunk for the players who won the championship, designed to house clothing, accessories and footwear.

Given the rich sophistication of the merchandise, it deserves a worthy trunk to travel in.

Virgil Abloh and Don Crawley

The Louis Vuitton x Capsule Collection II also featured selected pieces designed together with Don Crawley, known professionally as Don C, an American streetwear designer from Chicago, Illinois. Crawley has a long relationship with Kanye West.

The collection also introduced the first ever Louis Vuitton basketball [LV x NBA] at a cool price of $2200. The Louis Vuitton x NBA Capsule Collection II dropped in stores worldwide on May 28th, 2021.

AOC loves the Louis Vuitton collaboration with the NBA in a heart-felt way, because it gives the NBA players the respect they deserve in a post Colin Kaepernick [NFL, we know] world. There’s no NBA-related “shut up and dribble” BS attitude in this LV project. Call AOC inspired. ~ Anne

'Source' Says Kanye Is Headed to LV Men's; Ye Worked with Donald Trump to Overturn GA Election; Kanye Tells Kim K to 'Run Right Back to Me, Baby' Pt.1

'Source' Says Kanye Is Headed to LV Men's; Ye Worked with Donald Trump to Overturn GA Election; Kanye Tells Kim K to 'Run Right Back to Me, Baby' Pt.1 AOC Fashion

In 24 hrs. starting Thursday evening December 9, 2021 to Friday morning December 10, 2021

• Rumors are that Kanye West is headed to Louis Vuitton because he and creative mastermind Virgil Abloh made an agreement that West would take over after Abloh’s death.

• Kanye West joined Drake in a LA-benefit concert for Larry Hoover, currently serving a 150 - 200 years sentence at a high security prison in Colorado. At that concert, Kanye went off script and sang ‘Runaway’, dedicating the song to his estranged wife Kim Kardashian, asking her to 'Run Right Back to Me,Baby'.

• This morning Reuters broke the story that Kanye West’s publicist became very involved in trying to overturn the Georgia election results by giving total credence to Donald Trump’s accusations against Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and her daughter.

Anne of Carversville does not presume to know what makes Kanye West tick. For all we know, he’s headed towards another mental health episode, which we wouldn’t wish on anybody — even Kanye’s best buddy Donald Trump.

Since Kanye jumped on Donald Trump’s bandwagon and declared that God came to him in the shower, telling him to shut down Planned Parenthood, we have little time for Kanye West. A decade ago, we were big Kanye fans.

However, everywhere I’ve turned since 11pm last night, Kanye West is in my face.

Kanye fancies himself — like Trump — a great manipulator of simple minds like ours. After all, God speaks to him in the shower, so he’s a VIP on planet earth, knighted by God to do men’s work of keeping women subordinate to male rule.

To me he’s just another misogynist in the long-line of so-called men of God running roughshod over women’s bodies, but I’m sure Kanye knows best. After all, he has a direct line, and I have none — being a scarlet woman.

I’m about to do a brain dump on Kanye West and will divide it into two parts. We start with my Thursday night reading and pleas of “No, no, no . . . don’t do it.”

1) Kanye at Louis Vuitton Mens

AOC is still reeling from Virgil Abloh’s death, and last night Kanye West rumors broke that he’s headed to Louis Vuitton Men’s. In quotes from ‘The Sun’ that troubled me deeply, an unnamed source said: “Kanye is devastated about Virgil’s death because they had been friends for years and worked together a lot. They shared a similar vision and now Kanye feels he owes it to Virgil to continue his work at Louis Vuitton.”

Besides expected sources like Hypebeast, Highsnobiety, then the Daily Mail, Yahoo and scads of syndicated local publications by Friday morning, CR Fashionbook just picked up the Kanye West to Louis Vuitton Men’s story.

Kanye West Was Jealous of Virgil Abloh

AOC has a long memory and we recall distinctly Kanye West’s assertion that HE — and not Virgil Abloh — deserved the LV Men’s position. West expressed jealousy to DJ Zane Lowe during a 2015 interview for Beats 1 saying, "I felt like it was supposed to be me. I was the Louis Vuitton Don. People still called me the Louis Vuitton Don on the street."

None of us have forgotten this story, and it’s one that keeps getting resurrected.

In October, 2019 W Magazine wrote Kanye West Thinks He Should Have Virgil Abloh’s Job at Louis Vuitton.

When Kanye West sat down for an interview with DJ Zane Lowe in 2015, he proclaimed himself “the greatest living rock star on the planet.” In his latest interview with Zane, released today, West has upped himself to “unquestionably, undoubtedly the greatest human artist of all time.” His greatness, apparently, now transcends both mediums and eras. Leonardo Da Vinci, who?

“It’s just a fact,” he added for emphasis.

Let me say for the 27th time — Kanye West has a God complex, just like his good friend Donald Trump. If Kanye is unquestionably the greatest human artist of all time, Bernard Arnault would have hired him, because Bernard Arnault is one of the world’s most brilliant business executives.

Of course, there are many additional skills required to be a successful creative director and not seeing yourself as the center of the universe from sunrise to sundown is typically one of them. Temperment is an issue today, as we were recently reminded with the departure of the most talented designer Daniel Lee from Bottega Veneta.

Bernard Arnault doesn’t need Kanye West in his face now and probably ever.

Louis Vuitton is the biggest, most successful luxury brand in the world. Seriously, Kanye West called for a boycott of Louis Vuitton almost a decade ago. West is a loose cannon; and now he is tied to the Jan. 6 insurrection against the US government, as Trump’s man in Georgia.

Bernard Arnault Does NOT Need Kanye West

Arnault can have a trusting relationship with Rihanna and Jay-Z, and with Jay-Z comes his uber-talented wife Ms. Beyonce-Knowles — for advice on what to do in this matter.

They roll just fine with Mr. Arnault and his kids and are excellent sounding boards, who don’t belong to the “I am God” club. They are talented businesspeople-creatives, and they are genuine activists and philanthropists capable of looking at life from perspectives not their own.

This fine team of advisers is far from being alone on the LVMH roster.

Virgil Abloh was very tight with the new design director at Kenzo Nigo of A Bathing Ape fame. In reading about Nigo a few nights back, of course my man Pharrell Williams popped into the picture.

While Jay-Z, Beyonce, Rihanna and Pharrell Williams are running around town trying to create positive change in the Black communities of America and beyond — while they are giving of themselves for humanity and practicing some real Ubuntu Nelson Mandela style in their businesses and personal lives — Kanye West was trying to overturn the 2020 US presidential election.

There Is NO Justice: Louis Vuitton Men's Virgil Abloh Passes From Virulent Cancer

Virgil Abloh, the founder of luxury streetwear brand Off-White and artistic director of men’s wear at Louis Vuitton, died in Houston Sunday at age 41. Abloh has battled a rare cancer cardiac angiosarcoma for two years.

Abloh’s role within LVMH “made him the most powerful Black executive in the most powerful luxury group in the world”, wrote Vanessa Friedman for the New York Times.

“We are devastated to announce the passing of our beloved Virgil Abloh, a fiercely devoted father, husband, son, brother, and friend,” a message posted on the designer’s Instagram account stated. “He is survived by his loving wife Shannon Abloh, his children Lowe Abloh and Grey Abloh, his sister Edwina Abloh, his parents Nee and Eunice Abloh, and numerous dear friends and colleagues.”

For people who didn’t know this well-kept secret — like us — news of Virgil Abloh’s passing is a grade AAA gut punch.

“Virgil is incredibly good at creating bridges between the classic and the zeitgeist of the moment,” Michael Burke, chief executive of Louis Vuitton, told The New York Times when Mr. Abloh was named to the luxury brand.

As Friedman points out, Virgil Abloh was controversial in his approach to design — not having any formal education in fashion. Abloh had no difficulties acknowledging ways in which he borrowed, built upon and transformed the designs of others into his own. He studied civil engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and received a master’s degree in architecture from the Illinois Institute of Technology. These tools gave him a definite design perspective — which combined with superb instincts in understanding how to generate cultural currency in today’s consumer world.

To be honest, with Bernard Arnault backing him with the world’s biggest luxury brand, Louis Vuitton, I don’t think it matters all that much what “some people” thought of Abloh’s approach to design. The son of Ghanaian immigrants who lived in Rockford, Illinois, grew up immersed in skate culture and hip-hop.

Virgil Abloh’s rise was closely involved with Kanye West. Since AOC is NOT a fan of Kanye West — and less so every day — you can refresh your memory at the NYT.

In a historical timeline that Abloh shared with GQ’s Tom Bettridge, this quote resonates:

“There was a professor by the name of Louise Wilson, who was the head of the [master's program] at Central Saint Martins in London, and she was the teacher for some of the greatest designers of our time. Kanye and I sat with her, and we were like, “Hey, we want to learn the right way.” And she basically said, “You guys are idiots. You know more than my students. Why on earth would you want to go to fashion school?” But that process was sort of how we ended up interning at Fendi. And when we were there, we did all the meetings. We were off the radar in Rome, getting to work at 9 a.m. on a Monday. We did all the intern shit, and this was in the midst of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. We went to Hawaii after this period.

WSJ Magazine has a solid overview of Virgil Abloh’s work, and my link should give you access.

British Vogue EIC Edward Enninful called Abloh “a giant among men”, writing:

“Virgil Abloh changed the fashion industry. Famously prolific, he always worked for a greater cause than his own illustrious career: to open the door to art and fashion for future generations, so that they – unlike himself – would grow up in a creative world with people to mirror themselves in.”

Wondering if Ralph Lauren had weighed in yet on Abloh’s passing, AOC learned that his first design was a screenprint on a Ralph Lauren rugby shirt. Lauren was on my mind because in November 2020, I learned that one of our most prominent anti-racist voices Ibram X. Kendi has battled colon cancer.

His own revelation came a few months after ‘Black Panther’ star Chadwick Boseman died of cancer on my birthday. This is the same day — August 28 — that Emmett Louis Till was lynched beyond recognition in Mississippi in 1955.

Till didn’t die of cancer, but I’ve studied the evolving positive linkage between racism and diseases like cancer for several years now. The scientific paradigm ties the constant stress of racism in the lives of Black people to chronic inflammation in the body — similar to that of being in war for extended periods of time or a prolonged situation of verbal and/or physical abuse.

The ties between inflammation and disease — in the form of genetic damage due to inflammation — grow stronger every year, now that scientists better understand inflammation of the body and its impact on health generally.

AOC isn’t suggesting that all of these creative and masterfully talented young Black men are getting cancer because of systemic racism. But we all should at least be knowledgeable about the topic. And with Ralph Lauren being so involved for decades now in funding major cancer research projects and care, I suspect that some of his own activism is grounded in the scientific knowledge he has acquired on this very subject.

Ralph’s recent holiday 2021 campaign — one of the most activist I’ve ever seen from any luxury brand — assures me that he understands the cancer-related toll that discrimination and racism, sexism and anti-LGBTQ policies take on the human body. I really applaud Ralph’s efforts and in the case of Virgil Abloh, I literally screamed in disbelief at what I was reading. When I wrote “There is no justice,” those words are coming from a deeply emotional belief. ~ Anne

Louis Vuitton Men's FW 2021 by Tim Walker Busts Power People Archetypes

Republish via AOC at FeedBurner CC 3.0 License Attribution Required: Daily Fashion Design Culture News

Louis Vuitton Men's FW 2021 by Tim Walker Busts Power People Archetypes AOC Fashion

Whatever your opinion of Louis Vuitton Men’s artistic director Virgil Abloh, he is moving into his own zone of excellence — at least in the eyes of Bernard Arnault and the LVMH family.

Given the realities of business life, AOC reminds the naysayers of this simple reality check: “That’s all that counts.” Not only is LVMH thrilled with Virgil Abloh’s artistic and financial performance at Louis Vuitton Mens, but they are dramatically expanding his role and influence within the entire LVMH family of brands.

The month of July was intense for the Rockford, Illinois-born Abloh who is an artist, architect, entrepreneur, designer and DJ who — in the words of NYTimes woman-in-the-know Vanessa Friedman — is on track to “become the most powerful Black executive at the most powerful luxury goods group in the world.”

It’s true that Virgil Abloh is about “rewriting the rules”, and we love that this reality permeates most of what the hyper-creative visionary does with his time each day.

For the Louis Vuitton Men’s Fall 2021 Campaign, Abloh enlists his trusted creative partner, fashion photographer Tim Walker to play a fashion game of chess.

“By taking archetypes such as the writer, the artist, the drifter, the salesman, the hotelier, the gallery owner, the architect, or the student, the collection explores the dress codes that inform our predetermined perceptions of these familiar characters. Virgil Abloh imbues the grammar of these codes with different values and employs fashion as a tool to change those assumptions. Throughout the collection, garments, accessories, motifs and techniques play on themes of illusion, replicating the familiar through the deceptive lenses of trompe l’oeil and filtrage. Leather goods are interpreted through the classic shapes of Louis Vuitton and enriched with added wording, shiny silver, or tuffetage embroidery.” – from Louis Vuitton

Related: LVMH Buys 50% of Jay-Z's Champagne Brand As Bernard Arnault Nods To Black Culture's Financial Influence AOC Living

Savage X Fenty, Valued at $1 Billion, Is Poised To Rival Victoria's Secret and Win AOC Living (Note that while LVMH’s Fenty collab with Rihanna is on hold, the Arnaud family is a major backer in Savage X Fenty through L Catterton.)