Louis Vuitton Unveil Virgil Abloh's Pre-Fall 2022 Collection
Completed and photographed all before Virgil Abloh's passing on 28 November 2021, Louis Vuitton's pre-fall 2022 menswear collection channels the late artistic director's 'boyhood ideology', interpreting it for a new audience.
Completed and photographed all before Virgil Abloh's passing on 28 November 2021, Louis Vuitton's pre-fall 2022 menswear collection channels the late artistic director's 'boyhood ideology', interpreting it for a new audience.
The late Louis Vuitton artistic director Virgil Abloh 'approached pre-collections with the same analytical rigour that defined his runways', the French luxury house wrote in the collection's press release, considering them as 'essential garments of a wardrobe, 7.0'd'. Despite tragically not living to see the unveiling of his pre-fall 2022 collection, the artistic director was confident he'd achieved everything he'd set out to within it, exercising the philosophy of his' boyhood ideology', initially introduced in his first pre-collection and recycling it for a new audience and generation.
Designing a wardrobe for all occasions, Abloh decided to mix traditional dress code labels (such as 'formalwear', 'workwear', or 'streetwear'), merging them to become one to create a 'wardrobe vision for the future'. Suits are designed with a relaxed fit in mind, while the three-piece suit takes on a new shape a Louis Vuitton: wrap skirts replace waistcoats, blazers trade place with utility jackets, and tapered trousers become flares. Tracksuits are given a formal makeover by appearing in tailoring fabrics while dress shirts reverse into the more casual, taking on the look of a 'track shirt' signed off with a pin-hook detailing. Graffiti imagery courtesy of Ghusto Leon is also elevated into fil-coupé, jacquard, embroidery, and likewise appears on veils while the Damier pattern of a jacquard suit fades out into tiny fragments revealing miniature LV logos.
Overall, you could say there's an overarching theme of playfulness here, ultimately feeding into Abloh's defining beliefs in the influences boyhood has on today's times. 'What makes menswear? Boys do. I believe that building blocks stacked upon each other through our lives form the narrative of what defines menswear,' Abloh told of his first pre-fall collection. 'My work today bears evidence of everything that happened to me in my past: how I was brought up, educated, and how I evolved' and this collection is no different.
