Note: I wrote this as part of a University essay in late April, so some information may not be up to date. All "figures" mentioned in the essay can be found in the slideshow below.
When it comes to fashion and streetwear brands, there’s often a feeling of disconnection. And more often than not, this criticism is down to the pricing of the items these brands put out. Supreme box logo hoodies, for example, retail for over a hundred pounds and are then resold for thousands. For mainstream consumers who may not have that sort of income, despite their dedication or love for the brand, this limited availability along with high prices leaves a bad taste in their mouths. So, while brands like Supreme, BAPE and Stussy are still able to find their market, it’s not the one they may need for mainstream acceptance. Virgil Abloh, however, understands this perspective and as a result has succeeded with OFF-WHITE and its various collaborations, with his success coming from relatability to his audience as opposed to posing himself higher than them.
Namely this is through his upbringing which he described as ““awesome”, “suburban”, spent playing soccer, skateboarding and DJing” in an interview with The Guardian. He envisions OFF-WHITE as a brand “especially made for the emerging young clientele of Generation Y”, the generation which Abloh is a part of himself. This alone makes the connection between him and his audience clear, confident and organic in a way that YEEZY’s isn’t, as a connection hidden under layers of meaning and interpretation. It also establishes Abloh as a designer who is down-to-earth in knowing the lives his audience lead and understanding what they want as a result of his own quintessential ‘Generation Y’ experience. This persona is also what makes his social media presence not just unique, but exciting for any fan of his work.
On Twitter, Abloh isn’t a man of many words. He doesn’t want to communicate his personal and professional brands himself, but instead lets the popularity of both brands speak for themselves. Much of Abloh’s feed is made up of retweeted content concerning himself, OFF-WHITE and his own personal interests (Figure 1). Just like any designer would, Abloh utilises celebrity endorsement, although twists it in a way that works for both his personal brand and millennial audience. OFF-WHITE’s most recent endorsement came from Skepta, who tweeted a photo showing Abloh-designed Nike shoes which was then re-tweeted by Abloh (Figure 2). Despite Skepta “barely cracking the U.S”, Abloh knows he’s a musician that his audience would be aware of. In retweeting Skepta, whose tweet didn’t mention either Abloh or OFF-WHITE, instead of dedicating a post to him illustrates Abloh’s down-to-earth nature by making the endorsement seem coincidental. These ‘coincidental’ celebrity endorsements are scattered across Abloh’s feed, ranging from footballers to popstars. Their endorsement of OFF-WHITE doesn’t feel forced or expected. With our knowledge of pop culture, we understand someone like Kim is endorsing a brand like YEEZY to support her husband’s venture into the fashion industry. But through this same consumer perspective, seeing Virgil’s highlighting of such a diverse range of celebrities like Skepta, Justin Timberlake and footballer Kylian Mbappe wearing OFF-WHITE immerses his followers in the idea that these celebrities are wearing the brand out of interest. When looking at Abloh’s social media use, immersion is a large theme however unlike other brands, Abloh chooses not to immerse his audience in the idea of owning a piece of OFF-WHITE, but immerses them in the idea of achieving it.
In 2016, Barbara Mróz-Gorgón proposed the idea of a luxury brand being considered as “masstige – a combination of mass-production and prestige” (Mróz-Gorgón, 2016). This is important for Abloh in appealing to his Generation Y audience who, like Abloh, are aware of the large cost of brands like BAPE, Supreme and OFF-WHITE. To bring the idea of the ‘masstige’ to the brand, Abloh blends his down-to-earth personal brand and OFF-WHITE’s professional “grey area” brand by collaborating with more accessible brands. These include Nike, Umbro and countless others that Generation Y are not only aware of but are able to afford. This is emphasised by the pricing of Abloh’s collaborations which often share similar costs to other products in the brand collaborated with as opposed to OFF-WHITE’s higher prices. However, the collaboration that best illustrates Abloh’s appeal to Generation Y through social media is the “OFF WHITE c/o IKEA” collection.
The promotion of this collection was handled entirely though social media; from its announcement at IKEA’s Democratic Design Days show, livestreamed on IKEA Today’s Facebook and IKEA’s YouTube channel last June to a livestream dedicated to unveiling prototypes in April 2018. On the former livestream, Abloh related working with IKEA to Mróz-Gorgón’s ideas of masstige when explaining IKEA’s “principle that great design can be given to the masses and be accessible”. What brings the brands together, despite the price gap between OFF-WHITE’s clothing and IKEA’s furniture, is its audience as “a young generation out there eager to participate and live with design”. In the livestream, we see this intended audience in a video featuring young people across the globe showing us around their first homes. This video, like Abloh’s millennial experience, connects the brands directly to their audience, giving them a personal relationship with the people in the video while also immersing them in the achievable goal of owning a piece of OFF-WHITE alongside these people regardless of price due to the accessibility of IKEA.
However, the advertising for the collection didn’t stop at just one livestream. On October the 16th 2017 Abloh via Instagram (Fig 3) announced another livestream on Twitter where he and IKEA’s creative leader Henrik Most would be “taking your input on this @ikeatoday interior design project”. This livestream revealed new information about the collection, provided insight into Abloh’s personal brand and how the collection fits into it. In a critique of the merging of streetwear and high fashion, Jasmin Juzbasic notes that the increasingly collaborative nature of fashion has the power to “break down barriers regarding economic class and race and open up for even more understanding and diversity” (Juzbasic, 2017:30). In the campaign, this concept was implemented when Abloh and Most invited students to join the collaboration by using the hashtag #IKEAxVIRGIL to share “your thoughts” and “ideas you think should be considered by us”. One of the major takeaways from this invitation is its benefits for the audience of the collaboration, Abloh’s personal brand and the brands themselves. Inviting students not only reinforces the targeted audience of the collaboration, but also provides immersion into his brand for free.
With the hashtag, Abloh reinforces his own personal brand of incorporating his millennial viewpoint in his designs. Although in letting students use the hashtag, he takes a step back from channelling his millennial experience into his design and instead lets todays millennials channel their experiences into his designs. The hashtag went viral and was a success amongst young creatives who suggested ideas for the collection based on their millennial experiences across Twitter and Instagram (Fig. 4,5,6). With an upcoming livestream on April 30th 2018 to update audiences on the collection, it’s likely we could see these and other audience concepts become part of it.
![endif]--![endif]--![endif]--![endif]--![endif]--![endif]--