I always live in multiple places. I'm never in the same city for seven days.
— Virgil Abloh
People, when they say 'streetwear,' they miss the central component, which is that it's real people; it's clothes that are worn on the street.
I have this overriding principle that streetwear could end up like disco: that it will be perceived well at the time but doesn't age well at all.
I can come up with 30 T-shirt designs in a day, but it's just about where to slot each of them. That's streetwear to me. It's about knowing where to buy things, not this mass thing you can get anywhere.
To me, graphic T-shirts are the most important and most expressive format for a designer or a person. Your taste in graphic tees says a lot about your point of view.
You can look at Lil Uzi and know he has a strong opinion about his aesthetic.
'Creative director' is a catchall phrase for giving ideas. To me, it obviously means more than that. It's like being a counselor.
I was never meant to, like, work and then turn it off and sit on the couch. I just have a vision, and I'm inspired by it. It's sort of what makes me tick.
I don't want to be a celebrity designer. I want to keep my personal life out of it.
I'm always trying to prove to my 17-year-old self that I can do creative things I thought weren't possible.
I just wanna start a brand that inspires and is geared towards youth.
In my case, everything starts from Marcel Duchamp and the new expressive possibilities he gave us with his ready-mades. I transferred his artistic language into today's world, choosing, for example, to use pedestrian-crossing stripes as a symbol.
I don't know where my parents got my name. I'm sure they saw it in a movie, maybe.
My place in design history is to sort of interpret youth culture, and I think we've seen that done in fashion before - it's not a new concept - but it hasn't been done with the same vigour in a modern context.
My graphic design skills are superior to a lot of other things I can do; I use it as a part of my tool kit.
The concept with Off-White is that I have no ideal target. It's more about trying to make something for everyone. And I think that's what helps make it unique. That there isn't a specific muse.
From a very young age, as a teenager, I was into hip-hop and skateboarding and all those things that were akin to a kid in the '90s. All those things are what resulted in clothes.
Criticism doesn't worry me.
Take Tom Sachs as an artist. His brain is more brilliant than anything, so of course, anything he puts out over a ten-year period is going to continue to be super relevant. But if you look at some artists, they have one good idea, but unless you know where it's coming from, it's not going to be lasting.
The best New Year's resolution I ever made was probably to, like, pursue fashion in the spirit that I have now.
Graphic tees are vibes. And I think they're the basis of a lot of wardrobes, but that makes it challenging to distill what you're brand means within a T-shirt.
My style is to never say no.
I think that, in a digital age, album covers are becoming a lost art.
I suck at sleeping.
The blue-collar culture, it's not really a buttoned-up aesthetic. It's a heavy-labor thing because you're, like, sweating.
I want to put culture on a track so that it becomes more inclusive, more open source.
Pyrex Vision's first season was, for me, an expression of myself as an artist first, designer second.
Murakami's ability to deconstruct and his aesthetic and conceptual freedom have been totally inspiring for me.
Big teams are absolutely vital if you want to achieve certain results when you're working on larger scales, both in terms of physical size and productive quantities.
I started off as a kid who didn't care what my education was.
I always joke that, at any given time, I'm supposed to be at two other places.
I want Off-White to be a graphics-based brand.
My goal was to tell a dialogue between high fashion and streetwear. So, the name Off-White, in my mind, is between black and white. So, that middle ground is a mixture between both genres of fashion.
My motivation is, in part, a bit of angst that comes from feeling like I don't belong, that our generation doesn't belong.
From my perspective, I'm trying to stand for a generation. You know, each generation has designers who go along with it.
The most valuable thing in culture is to find something first - so everyone is always looking.
My friends and me, we're the type that don't care. We're not into fashion. That's, like, millennial spirit.
I don't do the vintage thing so much, just because it's not me. There are some vintage designers I'll buy things from, but mostly not.
I pride myself in collaborating and being a creative director, and creative direction isn't putting my opinion first. It's supporting an artist so they get the most out of the project.
Clothing interests me, but it's not the endpoint of my interest.
I oftentimes say that I design my collections off my phone. I'm in a group chat with my team in Milan. I copy and paste. I draw. I look at trends. I don't really have an assistant. It's a modern way of working. I don't know if it's sustainable, but it's how I do it.
It is an honor for me to accept the position of men's artistic director for Louis Vuitton. I find the heritage and creative integrity of the house are key inspirations and will look to reference them both while drawing parallels to modern times.
Everything I do references something that influenced me.
Growing up, at high school, we all used to wear Champion garments, which, in America, are standard-issue gym uniforms.
I'm fascinated by the idea that a human connection can be triggered through inanimate devices.
There's a part of me that's trying to represent kids that don't necessarily have the same outlet that I have. I'm not looking towards a new demographic. I'm looking towards the demographic I came from.
I'm constantly inspired by my friends and the people I surround myself with and the cities that I'm traveling to.
I'd do anything at the right time, and I would also do things at the wrong time if they felt right.
Kanye looks for the best in everything.
All the skateboarding brands that I was into had graphic T-shirts. In the '90s, there were different styles that went along with the different influences in skateboarding, whether that be hip-hop or rock and roll and grunge. And that's what I was into, so I was following all that.
