hi, everyone. thank you for coming. it's awesome to havesuch a giant crowd here. it's pretty sweet. so it's my pleasure tointroduce virgil abloh today at the graduateschool of design. i met virgil many years ago. we were workingside-by-side on a pavilion for an immersive filmexperience in cannes.
and it was a very challengingproject, on the one hand, due to the schedule,on the other hand, due to its technical complexity. and so a couple of nights rightbefore the actual opening, one of the many and prettyimportant stakeholders was losing his patience. and he sent a ratheraggravated email to virgil. it was saying somethingalong the lines of, what is happeninghere, it's crazy we're
trying to pulloff a multimillion dollar super complexproject, it's the 11th hour, dramatic changes are being done,changes are also being made, the soundtrack isn't ready,neither the video, we're changing the architecture,this is all insane. and i remember virgil'sresponse being, i know, teamwork is dream work! but that attitude-- thatcombination of clarity of vision on the one hand andaudacity on the other hand--
lies at the core of hisnature and is certainly the kind of infrastructure thatis both constantly identifiable in his work. and it's also what enables himto conquer the creative worlds at such an intense speed. virgil is never notvirgil and that constant is what allows him toseamlessly navigate the abrupt terrain betweendifferent territories-- beat fashion, music,sonography, art, architecture,
industrial design, orgraphic design performance. you will never seehim lose his cool-- not before the first fashionshow for his brand, off-white in paris, not in themidst of overseeing the design for an entire worldtour for one of the world's biggest musicians, not in frontof crowded lines of the clubs where he djs as flat white, notin front of full auditoriums across the globe. since that night in cannes,virgil came quite a long way.
he was nominated in 2015 asone of the top eight finalists for the lvmh prize in paris. he was inducted inthe bof 500 the people shaping the globalfashion industry list. he was also a top nominee in thecategory of international urban luxury brand at thebritish fashion awards and also a nominee for emergingtalent at the cfda awards. and in 2019, virgil will beshowcasing an artwork focused retrospective at the museum ofcontemporary art in chicago,
illinois. but virgil initiallystarted his career off by studyingstructural engineering. yet his biggestrevelation in school was that there was anarchitecture department. in his own words,he didn't know up until that point, thatarchitecture was a thing-- something you could legitimatelystudy or make a living with. he then proceeded to geta degree in architecture
from iit. and it seems that ever since,no stone was left unturned. his work covers animmense spectrum of collaborationswith people like jenny holzer, or corporationslike nike or ikea, musicians like travis scott,just to name a few. and i'm pretty sure i leftquite a few out there. one could argue the drivebehind virgil's philosophy comes from that veryfirst experience.
at the heart of it liesan endless generosity, openness, and transparency. he will not view himselfwith the mystique of success, but on the contrary, he'sin a constant dialogue with the audience around him. he's opening up his process-- always deconstructing hiscreative methodologies in a public arena,hoping that through that, someone is being exposedto thoughts and ideas
they haven't encounteredor dare to consider before. our first directproject for off-white was the first storeever, in hong kong. and it started with a strollthrough the chelsea galleries. we were lookingat art and talking about the vision for how aspace could represent everything that virgil stands for-- the ultimate freedom to bedifferent things all at once and none at the same time.
the next time wesaw each other again was actually at the veryopening of that store. the entire processand communication-- every single design decisionover the span of over six months-- was doneon text message. while it might soundterrifying to some, it was one of the smoothestprocess i have encountered. and it speaks volumes aboutvirgil's ease to collaborate, as well as his skillto express ideas,
because it requires ahuge control of language to be able to communicatewith precision in such a limited medium. we did, in fact, makea book from the process since it had beenso insightful too. virgil may not bepracticing architecture in the traditional sense,but he is an architect at a different scale-- one thatgoes beyond the physicality of space.
around that, transcendsany boundaries centered around a coreof pure creative freedom. ladies and gentlemen,it's my pleasure to welcome at the graduateschool of design virgil abloh. [applause] i'm going to turn off mywhatsapp before it starts annoying you, or you can geta sense of how many messages comes through on the wave. all right.
that introduction was serious. thanks, oana. thanks to harvard forallowing me to come and share random things on my laptop. but that's whatthis is about to be. first and foremost, iidentify with you guys. i still feel like i'm aperpetual kid at school. and that's thefirst thing that i wanted to deliver because wheni was a student all that i wish
i knew now, is that oneperson would have told me one ounce of advicethat wasn't necessarily, the rest of your career willbe like an uphill battle. but more likely, that there'sall these sort of short cuts that you can take. and so that's what, literally,this whole presentation's about. it's about shortcutsthat i've learned through studying somethingsuper practical like engineering
and architecture. but then in theoutside world, there's all these sorts ofcaveats that you can use to find yourcareer choice that's not delineated by a singlemajor or single coursework that you're in. and in typical fashion, i'msuper interested in doing what was inspiring to me themost when i was in school-- was watching famousarchitects present projects
that were buildingsbuilt in far off lands. that looked prettycool in photographs, but instead, of courseas oana mentioned, my work is by nature,cross-disciplinary. and it sort of lives outsidethe walls of architecture, but it's the exactsame line of thinking that i learned in school. so that's sort of the premise. and i'm just going to flipthrough and just showcase
different things thatinstagram basically doesn't have the capability to show. so basically, everyproject that i'm working on that i would never instagram,i'm just going to start sharing now, like ikea, nike stuff. get in trouble, probably,by some corporation in two seconds, but let's do it. sweet. so, as i sort ofoutlined, you guys
understand, but let'scall it design work. in an architecturalpress arena, we solve problems in avery structured way. that's what we're here to do. that's what thistraining is about. and basically, whati want to put forth is that, that logicworks in an analogous way and basically, everyother aspect of culture. we focus on living.
we focus on design--providing good design as a humanitarianeffort but essentially, understanding thatthis way of thinking can apply to everything. so this is the first timei'm debuting a new wave. it's got these red slides. these red slidesare cheat codes. basically, if youcan answer them, you basically giveyourself a cheat code.
and that's the sort of 2.0these talks that i'm using. and it's things thati've had to learn. i basically work at a feverishpace in a self-serving way, just to find my signature. what's my dna? every architect, designer,artist that i look up to-- whether they were doingperiod paintings or buildings in their early career tothe end of their career-- there's basicallya through line.
so what i would challenge youin your work, no matter what, is go. go back to your earliestmemories or the way that you thought toorganize something-- the way you thought toorganize your closet, or what colorswere your favorite? back in that early rationale,before you learned too much. that's when your dna started. and for me, that leadsme to my next slide,
which i'm super proudof, because it's the first time i've everthought about what i'm doing. i made myself make a list. this is straightfrom the iphone notes into my standard template. but i'll just runthrough it really fast. and then the productsthat i show afterwards, see if you can tell. see these signifiers.
but this is by challengingmyself to do a million projects at a time. i'm super obsessed with duchampsuper obsessed with readymade-- this idea that anartist over thought the game, understoodthe parameters, provided somethingprovocative, provided something that became a launchpad for other forms of art. and as you'll seein a slide later, it's important torecognize where
we're at in the lineage ofart movements, especially now. i'm sure even inyour class, you're trying to challenge yourselfto invent something new, try to be so avant gardethat has zero place. basically that's impossible. these are things that i'vefigured out through working-- is that we exist off thebacks of many other things and iterations before us. so once you think aboutus as a collective,
you then realize thatwe're all tracking towards the same direction. and that's where ithink humanity underlies this word-- down here, and i'msure it says design somewhere. so number two forme, is obviously this thing that's probablygetting a little bit tired, but get used to it becausei'm going to keep using it. it's talking in quotes. it's basically humor.
a couple of people laughed,and that's literally the point of that tool-- is to sort of insert humanitythrough conversations. you open up when you laugh. and obviously in ourera where vintage is more cool than apopular trendy item, it's just us being ironic. normcore k-hole,that whole rationale. it's real.
that's us. american apparel,that whole thing, is just the halo that we're in. so my way of doingthat and trying to be the most duchampversion of ironic is speaking in quotesbecause it allows me to say two thingsat the same time, or be figurativeand sort of precise. and i can basicallydesign with a keyboard.
i don't need photoshopor anything else. so there's that. then i have my 3% approach. right now i'm only interestedin editing something 3% from its original form. i'm basically tired. i might be too old. but i found that thingsare intriguing to me when they're slightlyedited, like these shoes.
it's like skipping ahead reallyfar into the presentation, but there's morenike's in this box that i'm going to throw around. but this is a air force one. yeah, the jordan way. but essentially, i got askedto do another air force one. this is like a new, new one. but i was only interested inrestraining myself and only editing it 3% because idon't want another shoe.
i want to seesomething that makes me recognize the shoethat i already have, but it's a personal thing. moving down,basically, off-white-- it's basically ashorthand pseudonym to remind me that i'malways just comparing two things, whetherthey're super dissimilar or they're actually the same. it's just my shorthand to say,between luxury and street wear,
that's how i can decideif a dress is done or not, or if this t-shirtgraphic is finished. it's an internalmeasuring stick. and then number five is,i love work in progress. it's another humanity thing. once i realized that it's okto not be a perfectionist, all of a sudden, i can do amillion things at once and go to sleep at night. and i think it's important.
i look at other friendswork, who are super precise and perfectionist. and i realized i'm just tryingto be a perfectionist, that i'm not even thinking anymore. the sort of designprocess is just going on to find somesort of space that, ultimately, actually lookslike something else i've seen. and i think it'simportant to remember that your hand in yourbrain will tell you
when something's finished. and then post-rationalize. make up somethingafterwards, or whatever. number six, which is importantto me, this goes back to, do we need another shoe? do we need another, whatever? an output, for me, has tohave a reason to exist. i think that's why we havetrash bins and recycling bins. it's in our brain that overconsuming is obviously not ok.
but i think to us, in thissort of design community, we're the thinkers. we're the ones who aregoing to challenge all these generational decisions. but first, every output-- does it need to exist? it's ok to say noin that context. number seven is oneof the things that is a driving principle to me.
it's like the tourist andthe purist meet somewhere. and that's basically what i loveabout coming to college towns. it's because iremember being here. think about how muchknowledge is in here, then think about how muchknowledge is in boston. there is a metric. it lives in these blocks,but there's real people in the world that benefit. and if we're not at the endinterchanging with that, then
ultimately, it's self-serving,as fun as design is. so that's superimportant in my work. ikea. so surreal. basically when they hitme up the first time, i swore they wantedme to dj an event. i was like-- i used to-- i admire-- my team tryto find the e-mails. i want to do an ikea project.
because this wasbefore the hypebeast was posting ikeahats and all that. i was like, can you imagine? not even in an ironic way. it's like i'm you guys. so i was the architecturekid that was making chairs, because class was soboring that i needed to like do something else. and i was like,oh, what if i could
bring this sort ofmentality that i was doing towards t-shirts to ikea? and so this is my squad. all kids that ihired off instagram that just came upto me and were like, hey, i know how touse 3-d, whatever. i was like, cool you're down. this is us last week, sothis is not even old footage. that's funny.
this is ikea hotels,a crazy place. so i'm just going to go fastbecause i got too many slides. but basically, thefirst project was designing a living environmentfor a millennial, which is super cool. ikea serves two billion people. i'm still stuck on that metric. it's what to oana i wassaying, is architecture-- i used to think wasjust building buildings.
but me navigating my wayinto this institution, basically, that providesfurniture to real people. these are tourists. and to me, if i can bring anounce of a new idea or an ounce of an idea that i hadwhen i was a student, that's already a win because itfeels a little bit different. so as you can tell, thatrug was racking my brain. of course it likelooks super simple, but for me, it's pullingthose vocab words out
of my own languageand applying it. i love the idea of thinkingabout the living room that you're notsupposed to stand or use like certain furniture. it looks expensive. so, that's that. off-white balance. in a moment here,that's a secret rug that you can'tsee at the bottom.
move pass that. i challenge myself too. it's like, who actually has theluxury to have a rug that big? but it's amazing. ikea representsdemocratic design, which is a wholephilosophy, which actually betters the earthand betters our consumption. and they make the bestproducts that they can make. and to me, what's key isthat they're affordable.
obviously off-whiteis it's own thing. it's by design an owned project,but it's important to me that things are attainable. that's why this lecture's free. but it's about the ideas. it's about the ethos,and that's why i'm excited to always share that. but this, i don'tknow how much it's going to cost, but definitelyprobably under $50, maybe.
and it's a lot ofideas in there. definitely going to getan email about quoting a price that i don't know. but it's ikea, you know? but what's cool to me isthat it's a piece of art. one thing about me is that in50 years, my goal is that-- it is kind of apparentthat i basically just use other factories asmy suppliers to make art. but i use the best and theones that have an ethos,
not the ones that aresort of behind the scenes. so i'm super proudof, because it's an idea that's been realized andis coming out, i think, soon. and then again, a millennial'sapartment, basically, is like 30 pieces that i haveto design, which is scary. it's probably thelongest design project that i've ever taken on myself. and a large part of that isbecause it's so permanent. it's like a t-shirt.
it's only going to get like fivewears or something like that. and then you're on to the next. that's fashion, andthat's the whole premise-- that it moves along faster. and there's a romanticismabout that which i love and which is my main occupation. but once you step outsideof that square footage of your closet, thinkabout how much you spend per square inch in your space.
your closet is like astronomicalbetween the shoes, the hood-- how many hoodies can you fit? how many of thatidea, but then what about the rest of your place? and when do you actuallymake the conscious decision to buy a coffee table? do you buy it out ofnecessity, or do you actually have an affinity for it? so me working with ikeawas a super dream project
because i couldput the attention that i was puttingin people's closet into objects that youlive with, arguably, in periods of 10 years. how often would you owna bed in your lifetime? so that's what i'mchallenging myself to make. and i'm trying to be like,is that something new that i made up thatsounds really dumb? but what if street wear waslike a architecture movement--
like a movement with an art? and that thingkeeps on popping up because i feel like,obviously, we're in this like postmodernismsort of state. but to me, what streetwear, in quotes, means-- it's just using whatevermeans to make something that is impactful, to makesomething super niche, and that you'reemotionally tied to. so as this ikea projectkept developing,
there's one secret elementthat i can't tell you. i came up with thisreally good idea, but my lawyer freaked out. so i can't even show it,let alone talk about it. but through that, no,which is important. every time you hearthe first "no," that's a good signbecause that first "no" will always drive areally good second idea. and then keep thatone for yourself.
so what i did is, i came upwith this sort of figurative way of thinking about objects. i was like, what's thebest invention in mankind, or whatever? and then just noteven really googling, just using your own head--it's like you're in wikipedia-- i was like, of course,the wheel, right? or a fire? skip that.
the wheel. and then everyone's got allthese random tumblr images on their laptop,or just googling. and i was like, of course, thewheel is an awesome invention, but whoever inventedthe doorstop was genius. i like this idea that-- i'm looking at this image thatthese two wheel chocks could stop a plane from taking off-- that could goaround the world but
except for theseannoying yellow blocks-- can stop a boeing 747 fromgoing from here to tokyo. and that's, heck,post-rationalizing. i think that's indicativeof my first idea that i really loved-- even i can't make inthat sort of realm. so inspired by thisimage is going to be-- basically, the ikeaproject is rooted in here. and it's that interruption.
so these are early sketches. these are sketchesonly like a week old. this is after going to ikea-- trying to problemsolve, but i'm trying to think of an aesthetic. and it's prettysimilar in all my work. when i started, i alwaysthink about one detail. and i think about repetition toown it because that's one idea. it's not about coming up with60 ideas for one execution.
so it's funny. ikea itself hasn't seen these. the idea, to me, issomething i learned too. you have to learn by making. so when i was there,they showed me some of the oldesttechniques, or how a broom handle goes into abroom head, and how it's like threaded. and that's sort of closure.
so basically, i want to takethat very old classic wood closure, and then thisdoorstop screws onto the bottom and makes the whole thing level. so it doesn't actuallyuse the doorstop as its physics mechanism. and that, to me, is streetwear. but deeper into it. and then, this chair is supposedto be the most generic chair of real life.
it's basically, if you'rea kindergartner, what do you think a chair is? because as we go back, i'mlike, do we need another chair? why are we designing chairs? so for me, you cankind of get a window into how i'm thinkingof things, like the bed. will have this iconicsort of feature. again, super affordable. the mirror is going tobe broken, basically.
because the ethos, forme, is like embed art. art is sort of free. it's something recognizable. it's not anonymous. and it makes it intriguingand something worth coveting. i was super inspiredby a trip that i took this summer to afriend's home, who's had museum quality art. open the doors andjeff koon's crazy thing
that you would see in aninvestment bank lobby-- cool sterling ruby. and i was like, iwant to make something at ikea that's equally ascoveted by a multimillion dollar home as it isby a college student. and to me, it's likeembedding art into something that is universal. so it was going tobe a broken mirror. the number one thing, i'vebeen doing these surveys too,
where i go and visit kids'homes and ask him 20 questions, take photos of their place. and basically, the numberone constraint with a home is storage. skip everything else. you don't really need anotherrug, a chair, whatever. the stuff that youalready have is-- you don't knowwhat to do with it. and my idea's makingvisible storage,
so at least you canrecognize what you own. that's why you have it. a bag. of course i'm doing the bag. but this is sortof the equation-- solving very practical thingswith adding some value. imagine that regularchair and then this weird chair withthe red doorstop. to me, that's cool to look at.
it becomes something ontop of it's function. there's a little ikea vibe. going on this slidehere, another one. this is like the photo that-- not really, itsnot that important. but it's impactful to me becausethe whole instagram, everyone's creative-- peter savile, mymentor, the guy that did all those like joy divisionalbum covers, told me--
he's like a super mentorof mine and was like, you know why your generationhas this feeling of angst and why you're sortof super normcore. a little bit over it butyou're excited to be in it. he was like, in my time-- which he predates meby like 20, 30 years-- when we were in london-- he, in his communicationgraphic design, meets a band calledjoy division.
they didn't even haveanyone to do an album cover. and they're justlike, hey, we know how to use these things at school. and it was basicallyjust that waveform, which was just a referencethat he had, and just gave it to him. photocopied it. it was like, here. and it's a super importantalbum packaging of their time,
in our time. he was basically like, backthen, there was three of us on the same street. it was like no one wasinterested in that. and look at all of us. we can fill a room. we're on the same path. so that's where thatfeeling of oversaturation is, but it shouldn'tbe discouraging.
we have a bigger community,is the way that i see it. but just having aknowledge of what these differentperiods in art are, can help you give understandingto what you're doing and why you arriveat these ideas-- like the whole worldinvolved in this sort of way. that gave me a bit of context. so i was not like fightingto be so different. it's just owning myown voice and it's
like a sea of differences. everyone's tryingto make a mark. so the renaissance. that's how i kickedoff this wave. i always bring this up intalks because you can never predict what first project isgoing to lead to your dream job or career goals. and this was my domino effect. i was just reallyinto caravaggio
to the point where me,as a creative person, didn't realize you could invent. and that's what thispainting represents to me. honestly, i just put this uphere to have it up at harvard. just try to make thislong winded vibe, but this is likemy domino effect. i hadn't ever overthought it. do you know what i mean? i just made this video,screen printed some shirts,
and gave them to friends. and then that's literallywhy i'm standing here-- a random sweatshirt and aphoto from a book that i liked. and basically it'sa two line poem on the back that sortof reads like a jersey. and it's super seminal for me. and i think it's important ifyou amongst all your studies-- amongst your nine to five--all these kids tuning in on livestream or whatever,if you just force yourself to do
the one project that youbelieve in, and then it exists, that's going to be the onethat's going to lead you on your career-- not necessarilythe practical ones. so that's just a showcaseof what i believe that everyone should do. and then, so going back to that,you also have to have mentors-- dead or alive. you have to connect withsomebody of work or someone
who formulated a thoughtand an aesthetic, and then build yours upon them. what most peoplewon't tell you is that the people that you lookup to didn't invent themselves. everyone has this sort of-- i call it, getting yourbrain reprogrammed. once you learn athought process, you can actually see yourselfin that and add to it. so for that, it'scorbusier, for sure.
and this kind of dialsinto that ikea project, when we're trying to solvethis issue of dwelling, and how do we live in spacesversus how the generation of thinkers before us thought. corbusier obviously thoughta house was a machine-- a machine to live in. so in that context, the livingroom is only for living. the kitchen's only for eating. the dress in your bedroom--
it's improper to changein your living room. that's not properhuman behavior. and so obviously,i have a mentor. i have a thought processand aesthetic that i love. but then once you learnthe ethos of why you love the aesthetic, you dig deeper. and then how to turnthe wheel left or right, so it's important. that's why i oftenreference things.
i'm not ashamed at recognizingthese great moments before us. but take anything andadd it to the year 2017, it should be different. it should feel like we cancollectively agree on it, and that's what i focus onin a number of projects. so moving on away, this isalso two weeks ago in milan. as the prada foundationwas getting finished, i happened to be theremeeting with rem on a project that we're working on.
and it was cool. he's discoveringthis new building the same time me andmy friend are there, so it was like a midway breakthrough our conversation. but i strictly loveimages like this, and i'll show them for foreverjust because the generation of thinkers and designers and usare on earth at the same time. i think it's critical that theseloops get made all the time. students and the people whobasically wrote our textbooks--
and i'll keep strivingto do this and just have conversations. so we spoke. and we're getting in-depthon obviously this idea-- what he's working, obviously,with the countryside, and that if half theworld's population is living in cities, than what'shappening in the countryside-- and how i'm articulating that,is what i see in our dynamic. i was just in soho an hourand a half ago, it was like,
there's so manystores are closed. it was like palace. and there's mercer. the end of merceris like popping. but all these vacant rea-- literally, half of downtownnew york is just empty. and we have amazon. we're not even shopping as much. and me, i'm infashion, so how i'm
adapting to this wholeidea of countrysides-- how is that going to change thehip relationship between cities and the countryside? are kids now going tolike live in montauk, and then go into the cities onthe weekend for entertainment? all you need a first floorretail for is basically eating. you don't need to shop. people aren't evenshopping in that pace. so the only reasonwhy i bring up
this sort ofdivergent tangent, is because this inspires howyou can design a t-shirt. it helps me think of-- again, do we need more chairs? so i would urge you guys alwaysto think abstract and big. countryside tocity is this macro, but it's giving meperspective on how to tackle other projects. another superimportant, for me, is
donald judd in terms of form. be a person i'm trying to find-- even though i knowmy aesthetic, but i'm interested in the overallform that things are taking. and just another. i'm just puttingthese things out there for people who don't know,to google these names and read up on things besideshypebeast essentially. but this is agreat quote, and it
synergizes with henrick who'sa design leader on my ikea. he's a another mentorof mine, and he made a good point that struck me. he said, we're at an agewhere design is just assumed. he's like, you don'tnotice that a door handle doesn't work until it's broke. he's like, but you forgotthat it had been designed. so we're in a world wherewe just expect design. and obviously, this room hasa higher penchant for what
design is, but it's everywhere. and how can we as acollective, make people-- tourist versus purist-- makethe outside world understand that design is somethingto be cherished? that's, to me, closer to qualityof life than anything else. so i think it's just importantto be mindful of these things as you're doing yourstudent projects, or you're working onyour extracurricular-- what your real passion projectis, is drawing these links.
all these things are just hereas like mood board for tools, for you guys tomake your own list like i had at the beginning. and then also, this a pointof crossing boundaries. just because you'rea furniture design, it doesn't mean you can't bean artist, or culinary chef, et cetera. and just studyinghis form-- the way he was using differentmaterials and approaches
to execute profound ideas andit was all rooted in his system. bingo. ok. nike shoes. which is cool in my projectthat i've done so far. i haven't been able to nerdout, like the actual process for that shoe, or howthese things came about. it started for me-- my own personal thing is,i'm not a sneaker-head.
i just wear the same shoesfor a really long time, and then i justgo on to another. but i understand thepassion for them. and obviously, i'm fromchicago, so michael jordan was our basketball player. so for me, the sort ofresurgence of these '85 vintage is where it started from. and of course, being entrustedwith nike to re-approach 10 different icons, i took that asanother major design project--
not like a, let'sjust color them up and put them backout into the market. i almost think about itlike a student would-- like how i wouldmake a model of it. and i challenged them to-- it was like an ethos that i had. i thought, nike products. the only thing that ican add to the situation is that i felt thattheir products came out
of a microwave, becausethey were so good. it's sort of naive, but they'reso perfectly put together. so this is the firstillustrator that i did myself, where i was like, i wantto get the feeling of this, but something brand new. and how does one go about that? and if you remembermy seven principles about work in progressor illustrating, i took it withgreat responsibility
that they asked me toapproach their icons. and when you thinkof nike, you quickly can say air, which is what alarge part of the whole ethos is based upon. and i did, like, thenaive-question-thing. i grabbed one. and i was like, in this airjordan, is there an air pocket? because it didn't say. i couldn't see it, and thispredates their technology
to open the window. so i just took an xacto knife,and jammed it in the bottom, realizing thatthere was air, and i was like, i going toright air in my language so that it reinforces the ethos. and then obviouslythis in-process is how we ended upwith a half-made shoe. as i want to mention,the iphone is my tool. the only thing that i--
i can have a conversation withyou and work at the same time. so of course i do that too much. but whatsapp is myfavorite program of choice. and this air-- the placementis all happening on my phone. so early prototypehere, before we were like getting thewhole thing together. these are cool. anyone from converse here? a couple kids, yes.
you guys can't reallyproperly see these. anyone know who jim joe is? he's the artist kidthat did drakes. he's way important. he did many more thingsjust besides that. but here's a specialedition he did. it's got a swoosh on it. this was the originaldesign intention. it basically causeda huge headache
when i tried topull this one off. i love if you could makeimpossible product-- product thatdoesn't seem like it would make it througha legal department. that's an ongoing thing,but since it was-- what i thought the mostimportant thing is it's nike inc. going across the brandsthat they own, which is huge. so it's air jordan. that's a different company.
nike, itself, and chuck taylor--a company that they own. they're giving me 10 of them. so out of all 10, mydream was that you would do somethingthat can only live within the 10 of those products. so if anyone wondered,that's why there's this woven label that's here. it was another one of myget-out-of-legal issues. i had them cut as if itwas the same as this one.
it's another jimjoe air force 1-- one of one art piece. it's my friend, basically,who inspires me, so i have mentors that are dead. i have mentors that are30 years older than me, but i have mentors that arelike 10 years younger than me. and he's the friendof mine that gave me this nudge to just right onthings, and don't be precious. and i think thisembodies that too.
he grabbed it, and thenjust gave this back to me. and i was like, thisis from dover street. you just took it off the shelfand drew and then put it back. and i was like, thisis why i make stuff. it's just spark an idea. i'll pass these around, soyou guys can steal them, and i'll find you for sure. kid with the ogg hat. yeah.
but i think it's importantnot to be precious. that's what thiswhole thing is-- nike and other dreamprojects, for me. and i was like, i have tohit this out of the park. and all the architecturekids can catch a vibe. a lot of this islike model-making. this is at the same time thati came up with that whole putting sculpture on a bag. that was just mefinding new space.
and that's when i was like,a shoe is a shoe to me. i'm not approachingit as a shoe, and i think maybethat's why i found a little bit of open space. i was just lookingat it like an object. you can choose towear it on your shoe, and that's where sneakerculture had gone. these just sit above kids'beds, or they sit somewhere. and i think theysit in boxes, still.
and i wanted to feellike they were already used when you got them. they're still precious,but they seem like objects. this is where thepresto came from. kid named matt kilgoreis like a genius. nate, job, and rico was likea squad of kids in a shop, just like you guysprobably have here. this is where is why thesole turned out this color. because this is justa 3d printed sole.
and this is actually an air max90 that's turned inside out-- that got jammed back into it. and i was like, stop! no one do anything else. it's done to nike, who canmake a spaceship, basically. so that shoe literallyexists because we were just cutting around and making this. so i'm proud of that[? vibe. ?] oh yeah. that's that little cut.
it's supposed to benike, but that's as far as i could get them to do. this is a shoe. this is the very firstshoe that i made there. because i was like, ididn't come all this way from my first nike meetingand not end up with anything to take home. i was like, where's the printer? like, hey can you-- andthat's what i do-- say, hey,
can you do this? can you glue this here? and so these are oneof my favorite shoes. just details. but the process-- i think if you guys can see thisand get inspiration off of it. but i know oana is afan of model-making. did you ever pullthat trick off of? of getting a studio thatonly does model-making?
she's working on it. i'm going to take that class. yeah, the versions ofthis shoe before it came. i don't know if i can show that. yeah, that's the shoei showed you before. the blazer did that on whatsapp. the idea that theswoosh was just lower-- those mistakes in photoshopwhen you put something over, and you're like,oh, that looks cool?
now on your feet. yeah, this is this. the first version. it's just one bullet point. that's sort of theprocess of how i work. and the reason why it's alittle bit all over the place-- i always thought ifyou worked linearly, then you have no room. you know, do opposites.
it just feels better. but then that space in betweengives you a new experience that you can applyand problem solve. that's why i think i work onso many things at one time. i couldn't just do oneproject day in, day out. i think it'sactually not healthy. women's show. this platform is super coolbecause when i do a fashion show, it's probably themost amount of-- it's one
of the products that i do. it takes fourmonths of thinking, and people only seeit for seven minutes. and no one ever has aconversation around it. it's usually, like, twointerviews that i do, and then it's off. but my last womenshow in paris was based around princess diana. and it was a tributeshow, just because i
felt that she predates our now. to me, she's one of themost photographed women on the planet, earth. and it's sort ofin our periphery. but she's like a musefor modern dressing. the fact that she could goliterally from something so formal something so casual;had her own sense of style. there was no instagram. there's no paparazzi.
there's no outfits. there's no stylist togo do the daily errands. so i wanted to highlight that. it's like i have this brandoff-white only to tell stories. i don't have it to dotraditional fashion because i don't know that. i started from that prps-- a hoodie with acaravaggio image. but i would thinkand i promote is,
i was never going to belimited by hoodies and t-shirts no matter how muchit made sense. you can imagine how muchadvice that i had gotten-- was like, hey, just do that. and it's like, nah, i wantto draw a line between that and the opposite. and that's with a zigzag. so now, i'm free toarticulate stories. and this too.
drop that in there for you guys. but look at this whole outfitat the image shot on film. the fact it's universal-- that's what i love,as you can tell. i love brands becauseit already gives you a starting point to tell anotherstory or divert from that. so these are the type ofimages that i was looking at-- the red cross, even that. so a little known fact thati did is, i did these pieces
and i collaboratedwith the red cross. and i tried tocollaborate with harvard-- didn't work. but donating back tocharities that she was giving her time to, sothat her message could live on. that's an architecture thing. that's like literally anarchitect getting a program, and deciding where and howbig the room should be. put me in fashion,and i'm like, wait.
i want to continuethis one person's story because it's super like-- the idea of usinggraphic t-shirts that-- red cross, off-white. they exist now and theproceeds are going back. so that somethinglike super fulfilling, to me, that doesn't necessarilyfit in any sort of post anywhere. and then obviously,what she meant,
she was like princess diana--like a living cinderella. so my show ended uplooking like this. from that prps hoodiechampion that wasn't my brand, all the way articulating to thisimage-- which to me, is just a five year graduation ofthat same exact domino effect project. all the handbags-- this idid get legally cleared-- i took news tabloids, all thosesorts of things, and was like, this is a version of theirgraphic t-shirt to me.
but it's the handbag withthe logo that is a purse. and the thought process wasone of the most advanced personal concepts for fashion. to me, it's like, put this in2017, if she was here with us. or the idea of people wholive with paparazzi images of themselves. what's the one thing that apaparazzi mag might not do? it's promote acompeting organization-- which was the whole ethosbehind these handbags.
this is streetwear--my sort of art movement that i'm trying to claimas something advanced. but the idea to me thatthey make you laugh, it's got that tingeof irony in it. it's got that feeling like it'sjuxtaposing something else. and it's not limiting me tothis sort of streetwear 1.0, but that i cantell this narrative in a far off different space. so these are justimages from the show.
this is derived from a tiara. obviously, no one'sgoing to wear one in those in a modern context. so i was like, let'sput it on the feet. let's re-imaginewhat high heels are. i did these all with jimmy choo. gotten a little bit oftrouble for doing this. i can only use jimmychoo shoes in the show. and i had all these nikeshoes and i was like,
can i just do two of them? because this was based on whenyou're commuting and you're on the train. and obviously, women having towear heels on the way to work, you hold the heels in yourhand and then wear sneakers. but you know theethos is obviously all right on anything. this is a show--super proud of it because it puts the needlewhere i want the women's wear
for the collection to live. while the menswear or any otherideas that i've had since i have started can still live, butthat's the ethos of off-white. like both are off-white,not one or the other. last show. you can't reallysee them, but those heels-- it was based onthat glass slipper vibe. they all had plastic. yeah, that's it.
they become objects again. i show these images because youguys might be in your studios, thinking that it is bad. i still practice architecture,not at the same pace or point, but your ideas are analogies. so your thought processcould apply to something else that you might noteven be thinking of. but hopefully, you see somethinglike this, and it's like, oh, it's ok to sort ofveer off and to send
a random email to heelcompany or a random one to an eyeglass-- warby parker or whatever. before you know it,you'll be realizing ideas in differentspaces, and that can inform what you're all about. yeah, streetwear again. one of the laterepiphanies that i've been having is that,even in conversations,
an analogy is something thatworks for us in a design sense. you can use the sametools in different mediums and arrive at different results. so keep that in mind. of course, rap music. so in that same veinof analogies, of course i can't limit myselfto just ikea or nike. really the ideabehind this video-- he asked me to directhis music video.
and it might bedifferent for you guys, but my immediate reactionto anyone asking me anything is yes. and then i'll think about itand usually i won't say no. but 9 times out of10, i should probably be like, oh, i'mbusy or whatever. but i just say yes. and he had asked meto direct this video. and i was like,yeah, let's do it.
and i didn't even havethe full idea yet, but i know my seven principlesare of this in process thing. it's my signature. it's the way thati realize concepts. so we shot this. this was the secondvideo i've ever shot. the first one was fashion killawith a$ap rocky and rihanna. it was a long timeago-- proud of that too. all of these videos thati've shot take place
in the mercer hotel-- which is random,but it's a fact. but this is like thedirector's edit that i made, which is like thepurest form of the idea, basically, before the recordlabel adds a bunch of jazz. but it's to showcase that,hey, it's like if i'm asked or there's anopportunity exists. it's not aboutbuilding a building, sending a graphic for this,or oh, i only do that.
keep that door open. and then you can make new worksof art in different spaces. so my way of capturingthis in process moments that i putmyself in the process. so there's two points ofview of this same narrative. the reason why i showed theprincess diana sort of project in this one, isthat i'm touching on a same socialcommentary part. it's like works of artthat are distinctly made
now influence with our pensionto like something-- like see photos and press something. princess diana. that's like literally theworld that she lived in by being the most photographed. or this sort ofenergy that happens outside prince andmercer when there's famous people on the story. and then they just gothrough this mythical door
that no one breaks that barrier. so this video was about that. you can't-- i'm notgoing to promote that. but basically, whenthose lines get crossed, and that that's what this was. it was me just travelingfrom the street through to making it all theway up to this hotel room. but telling thatmodern narrative story that people want to knowmore and get all the way up
close to thatinformation or synergy, just hang out withtheir favorite rap star or whatever-- that line. what does it look like oncethat barrier has been broken? so this sort ofvideo takes place-- there's like figurative, allmy friends are now alive wave. but films-- moving imageryis such a good thing on the mood board. not all mood board shouldbe like tumblr images.
yeah that was the end. got fined 3k for the blood. again, so this is mine. i urge-- yeah, i alwayswanted to say this. everyone's homeworkbefore next class is to make theirown design language. literally, i'm very upsetthat it took to me-- and i'm 37. it took me this long to--
well, i think it takes a lotof work and lot of projects to define that. yours might only be like2 or 3 at this point, or it could be 13. but it's like, why work? what are you working towards? you're either in or you're out. you could just bechill, but obviously, i take a huge passion aboutthe creative work i do.
it's not even work. it's just living for me. so the things thatmake it more tangible is that they make sense,and that there's a lineage-- at least that i'm focusingon a project irreverent to whatever medium it is. so in closing, basicallyput yourself in my shoes . it's super weird tohave this light on me. i'm not that special.
you guys have all the resources. and this is a message. because obviously, i'll behanging out on the corner talking to kids that areaspirational about doing something design work. and obviously, when they seeme here, they're like, what? you're at harvard? how come you don'tcome to like, wherever? and the whole point--
it's in my presentation. it's not about one or the other. it's that we're all inthis one big conversation. so the whole point ofthis whole presentation of just stuff thatnormally doesn't get shown is, i'd rather shareit to the world, so that somebody takes it andspins it off into something that is impactful for them. so with that, i need thatconverse chuck taylor back.
where is it? yeah, that was basically it. but this one is you. the idea that-- you know. i don't know whatyour internal metric is for what your goals are. they should allbe very different. but you guys are born at avery awesome distinct time. i think that thisis the renaissance.
don't get trapped into this. everything sucks. the world is coming to an end. that's just an internalmechanism, basically, to chill. when you don't have toput yourself out there, you can wake up every dayand come up with excuses. but it's exactly the opposite. and i think you guys have anawesome education background. you're intrigued enough tocome here-- this rambling
of a bunch of random projects. but i know you guys. if you're interestedin this, you guys are interested in tacklingsomething that isn't seen yet. so with that, i'm done. we'll have about 10minutes for questions. if you guys have any, there'stwo people with mics running. hey. hey virgil.
thanks for the amazing lectureand the product that you show. well, i don't mind ifyou throw me a sneaker if i ask a bad question. so i actuallywatched the vide0-- it called crash coursethat you did with nike. and i was the kid thatyou talk about that. i was put in the backof the live stream. well, ok. let's go to the questions.
so, well, i mightnot be at the edge that you were the bigfan of michael jordan, but i guess, well, i was atedge like allen iverson and kobe bryant. that was like quite on the hill. stars? so my question isrelated to allen iverson was always asking. like, is i'm talkingabout practice.
so-- that he doesn't needto practice, basically? i mean, so i'm curious. what's a routine practice thatyou're in your 30s schedule? if you can talkdeeper about it, i-- that's a good question. i don't know aboutlike analogies like, your brain is a muscle,have to like work it out or whatever, something weird.
but something that wassuper impactful to me as a prps vision-- what it used to be,this tumblr that i have that i would photograph. i just trained my eye to becreative limited to one thing. that's what i'm doingnow with the quotes. but do some random activity thatforces your eye to see things that it normally wouldn't. that's for sure howi'm able to sort of--
and that call when i [inaudible]just iterating through like 13 things at one time untili can quickly get to an answer. you can't do that if you'recasually being creative. it's like if you have tosit and you're like, ok, i'm going to solve this problem. you have to like intertwineit with how you see the world. i love my friend, piot. he's like an artdirector for off-white-- showed me his friend.
he's got this instagram that hephotographs this one designer brand any time he sees it. so the whole instagram--so what it's done is, it's trained his brain. while he's casuallydoing something else, if he seems like, oh a blackchanel bag, just shoot it. and then all of a sudden,it's like this running sort of creative side. and i think if youwant to find new space,
if you want to like get toanother crescendo of design and having yourbrain figure out how to esthetically puttogether something, you have to do it often. that's what i found myself. good. i guess. what's up, virgil. my name's peter frommathematic athletics.
you mentioned having mentors,especially dead ones. i'm trying to figure out,what's the best way-- and not like, no sorcery stuff--like, are you communicating? what type of questionare you asking mentors in a past that areno longer here? for me, the number one beforegetting into the nuance is, why? i can think. it's like, why do we loverock 'n' roll graphics?
or something like, whydo we love hoodies? why do we lovedesigner something? that sort of gets the firstnuance as to the ethos. every mentor i have,or like someone that's passed, andlook into their work, it seems like they had to cut. they have a narrow view, andall the work that you love fits into this view. and i think it's abouthaving a dialogue with why
you're making these decisions. there's a certaincreative things that you decide before youeven get to solving it. and that's why it's important tohave somebody that you look up to and constantly conversate. and the most important thing ishaving someone edit your work. at this point, there's nowrong answer in design, but there's a right way to edit. and don't think aboutit in that harsh way.
it's basically, look at it asa communication art exercise. that's what designessentially is. i have these ideas in my head. i put them in thisinanimate object. hopefully, you get thislong winded speech. and what i've done is,i've made it my practice. that whole long 90 pagepresentation was just-- i just gleamed out of thatthose seven bullet points, so you guys got the cheat code.
but this shoe is so manydetails through that you can maybe get it. and that's probably why ourconversation with all of you guys that i haven't met,but if you see this shoe, we're sort of halfway talking. and then i listedit off six mentors. so in a nutshell,that's literally my whole brain on display. last question.
what would you describeyour defining moment-- like your "aha!"moment as a designer? yeah, it was the fact thatthere is no "aha!" moment. that's the one thattripped me up the most. i still, to this day, amreluctant to call myself a designer because i believethat designer ] look like me, which is like a deeper-- that's like a bar. rapper quavo comes overthere and he's like, oh shit!
but that was my biggest hurdle. and that's what i mean to tell. that's the main messagethat i'm delivering, is that most of these hurdlesare self-imposed as designers. they literally don't exist. there is no failure. failure is like as realas like halloween ghosts. do you know? and as a designer, i literallywas like, oh, i'm just
going to work in an office. i'm going to work and bean assistant to a bigger firm in architecture. and then on theweekends, i was going to dj and be into supremeshirts or something like that. and listen and go to travisscott shows or something. i was like, that'swhat life is-- 9:00 to 5:00. and then the "aha!"moment was like, wait.
i can just put work outand if it's good, it works. if it's bad, no one notices. then i can justget better at it. and then i could runinto a friend or a brand, and be like, hey,i've got an idea. so that's the reality. that's what i flew in peace out. the cool kids are out. but that's the reality.
i wanted to fly here and-- it was really oana's idea. our text messagesis really good, but she had the foresight. but i wanted to just come andjust say those few things. and then hopefullyyou guys run with it. thank you. hey, virgil. so two quick questions.
well, actually statement first. i have a share for you. so first question is,yes or no real quick. can you sign myshoes after this? second question is-- if you want me tosign something-- i've got to leave in 10minutes, so i'll do it. right now? ok, i'll walk up.
i just got to-- you've got to throw it. you have to throw it fromthere, and i have to catch. if i don't catch it,all of these shoes, i'll take five shoes. yo, everyone hearing this? i'm going to bedecent human being. i'm going to be adecent human being. just leave mine right here.
i got a marker for you. i got a marker right here. this is going to keep goingbecause the mic's still on. somebody make a video ofthis because i'm [inaudible]..