Revealing Off-White’s plan after Virgil Abloh

New Guards Group and LVMH reveal their plans to build on Virgil Abloh’s legacy and build the brand into a multi-billion dollar enterprise.

Virgil Abloh, Davide De Giglio and Andrea Grilli got the word “WOLF” tattooed on their right arms in 2017: “We were like a pack, we were like brothers,” said De Giglio, the Milanese company directors who founded the luxury urban fashion sensation with Abloh. “Virgil was a legend, but he was a friend first,” said Grilli, Off-White’s CEO since 2019.

Off-White has become one of the fastest-growing fashion brands since it was founded. But in November 2021, Virgil passed away suddenly, aged 41, after a private battle with cardiac angiosarcoma, heart cancer. Now, Off-White is preparing for its first fashion show since the death of its founder.

Louis Vuitton boss Michael Burke has compared him to Karl Lagerfeld. “I saw the same visionary approach, the same attraction between the designer and the audience. They were both absolutely fearless in doing things differently, tireless in their work ethic, identical in their curiosity and equally connected to the spirit of the times.”

But for all its genius, Vuitton will no doubt find a way to turn the page without Abloh by entrusting its business to a new creative director. For Off-White, the situation is very different. Losing a founder can pose an existential threat to a young label, even one as successful as Off-White.

Now, De Giglio and Grilli, along with their mentor Burke, plan to build on Abloh’s legacy to turn Off-White into a “timeless” brand on the scale of Dior. The same brand that has become the most important brand in the LVMH empire and whose fashion business generated an estimated $7 billion in revenue last year.

Off-White’s challenge without Virgil

Now, Off-White faces the challenge of moving on without its creator. “The positioning of Off-White is beautiful for us and it’s still selling very well,” said Selfridges buying director Sebastian Manes. “But Virgil was very present and meant a lot to a lot of people. He was as big as the brand. It’s hard to dissociate the two.”

“Yves Saint Laurent replaced Mr Dior, but Virgil’s passing need not lead to the hiring of a messiah. There has been no precise decision on the succession. But the brand has many cultural aspects and this allows us to take different paths, and taking one doesn’t preclude doing another a few seasons later,” Burke said.

Grilli and De Giglio are currently betting on opting for a “collective” to take the brand forward to a new horizon. “It’s going to be a group of people, a movement, a collective,” De Giglio said. “Think Linux, open source: you can inject something new and the software pattern evolves.”

The couple want to keep the brand fun, continuing Abloh’s practice of moving beyond fashion into art, architecture, music, sport and even food. “Off-White is one of the few brands that can sell a mug, a rug, an ashtray and a leather jacket,” said Grilli.

This week, Off-White will preview its beauty line, a genderless range that is more about self-expression than beauty, and will also launch a collaboration with restaurant group Caviar Kaspia that will be a “100 percent takeover right down to the tableware,” Grilli said.

Now… Why not take a look at Stüssy’s new project with record label Bone Soda and artist Bakar?