Last Sunday, when the news of the death of designer Virgil Abloh made the rounds, it became very quiet in the fashion circus for a moment.

41. Cancer.

In the face of this untimely death, critics, who liked to call the American a restless jack of all trades, first bit their lips.

It was true: In recent years Abloh had cooperated with so many brands that the question arose whether he could still keep track of things himself.

Not only fashion companies (Levi's, Moncler), car manufacturers (Mercedes) and perfume manufacturers (Byredo) adorned themselves with his name, even food companies like Danone hired Abloh.

The fashion designer, who was responsible for the men's collections of Louis Vuitton in addition to his own brand Off-White, also leaves behind a number of pieces of furniture. They were created for Ikea, for example. In 2019 he designed the “Markerad” collection for the furniture company - “statement pieces for the first apartment”, as it was called at the time. Ironically inflated carpets that looked like artificial turf and were labeled “Wet Grass”, or runners that looked like an Ikea receipt, reached astronomical prices on marketplaces on the Internet even before his death. Abloh also pursued the eclectic style in designs for the Kreo gallery in Paris: a bench like a skate ramp, pierced and covered with graffiti; Concrete tables and consoles that celebrate the legacy of brutalism. As in fashion, Abloh tried to bring street and high culture together.This was particularly evident in the collaboration with the manufacturer Braun, whose "BC02" alarm clock he dipped in monochrome signal colors. Abloh did not even stop at Dieter Rams' wall system, which was believed to be sacrosanct.

The studied civil engineer, who actually wanted to become an architect, had them chrome-plated as a reminiscence of Mies van der Rohe and the polished rapper rims of the eighties.

At Abloh, this was the “three percent approach”: Change just enough to make the design your own.

The designer was often criticized for this attitude as lacking in ideas.

The opposite was the case.

Abloh mastered the keyboard of a new world that understands appropriation as a tool and places the remix on a par with its original.

Virgil Abloh was the spiritus rector of the style quote.