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In the Studio: Virgil Abloh

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Virgil Abloh

05/02/2019 GMT

BBC World Service - In the Studio, Virgil Abloh

Exploring Virgil’s approach to design and speaking directly to young consumers

Virgil Abloh is an architect, founder of the OFF-White clothing brand, and long time creative collaborator of Kanye West. He has conquered the world of visual arts, high end fashion and music, appealing to a young and devoted audience of fans. In 2019 Abloh’s taking on a new challenge, designing mass produced furniture.
 
Presenter and DJ, Benji B reunites with Virgil to find out why he decided to move away from music and fashion to collaborate with IKEA on a furniture range called ‘Markerad’. 
 
Benji explores Virgil’s approach to design and his aim to ‘edit’ past concepts by 3%, just enough to twist them into something new. Virgil likens the process to sampling records in Hip Hop music. He also uses the language of the internet to subvert consumers expectations or shape their experience of a product.
 
Virgil explains how his design signatures, such as the use of text in inverted commas, have developed and why they speak so directly to young consumers who have grown up with the Internet as part of their lives.
 
(Photo: Virgil Abloh, architect and founder of the OFF-White clothing brand)

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