00:00He talked about kind of being, having one foot in a lot of different worlds, about sort of living in the in-between spaces, and how he really hated feeling like he was being boxed in, and the line, the brand that he created on his own, which was called Off-White, the name of it was really a reflection of that idea that, you know, he was living in the in-between spaces.
00:28So I really admired that. I admired the fact that he refused to sort of be forced into one kind of stereotype, or he refused to fall to different presumptions about what he should do, what he should be interested in, shouldn't be able to do.
00:50That was, I mean, I feel like that was really a powerful thing on his part.
00:54Yeah, definitely. I think you mentioned Off-White, but when I think about Virgil and like the start of him being kind of like himself and unapologetic, I think of Pyrex, which is the brand before Off-White, with the flannel, the white printed on the back, it's just something that like really started a, like a wave almost.
01:15Can I just tell you, like the thing that I love about Pyrex Vision, which was, which he described as an art project, and he did it in 2012, and one of the most significant aspects, as you said, were these flannels that he's screen printed.
01:31He bought the flannels from Ralph Lauren Rugby, which was going out of business.
01:37He bought them for about 40 bucks a piece.
01:40He screen prints them with Pyrex 23, and then he sells them for well over $500 a piece.
01:48Yes.
01:49And they sold out.
01:50Yep.
01:50And what I love about that is he took these Ralph Lauren flannels, and Ralph Lauren, more than any other designer brand, kind of represents this idea of Americana, right, like this American dream ideal.
02:06And Virgil basically said that I'm going to take these flannels that represent the American ideal, and I'm going to put my mark on them.
02:18I'm going to put my creativity on them, and then I'm going to sell them for a 700% markup.
02:24Yep.
02:24And by that, he was saying my presence, my added creativity makes the American ideal that much better.
02:33Yeah.
02:33Makes it that much more valuable, and I love that.
02:36Yeah, I think you kind of touched on something about taking something that was relatively cheap and adding his value onto it, and I think it kind of speaks to where, I don't want to call it the streetwear industry right now is, but I guess designers that look up to him, that create products that are identical to Pyrex or identical to Off-White, you sort of see these brands where it may be just a t-shirt that has a graphic, but they're charging $300, $400, $500 on it because of the appeal, you know?
03:06And I think Virgil was definitely a leader in that aspect.
03:10Oh, for sure.
03:11I mean, after reporting this book, I sort of jokingly said to parents, like, if you've got a kid in the basement making t-shirts, like, egg them on.
03:20Yeah.
03:21You don't know what could be brewing down there.
03:23No, absolutely.
03:24No, that's very good advice.
03:26Speaking of kind of him going from Pyrex now, I want to jump into Louis Vuitton and that significance, as you briefly mentioned earlier, just about him being really just monumental, breaking barriers, and being the first there.
03:40What was so monumental about that, especially just within the fashion industry and that specific industry?
03:45Well, I mean, the first thing is that, just in general, there are so few creative directors of color at any major fashion house, whether it be in Europe or in the States, but particularly in Europe.
04:03It was significant because Vuitton is a brand that was, you know, centuries old and, you know, is very much rooted in this idea of brand DNA.
04:18Yep.
04:18Which is a phrase that the fashion industry really loves to use, this notion of, like, the DNA of a brand, which suggests that, you know, there's something immutable about what the brand is.
04:32And Virgil really proved that, like, that wasn't the case, that the brand, brands could evolve, that brands could grow.
04:39And it was also historical because he had such an untraditional background.
04:45Yep.
04:46And it was groundbreaking, in part, I think, because it was the menswear, and he came into it when menswear was having such a profound effect on fashion in general.
05:02And truth be told, black men were having, A, a dominating effect on menswear, and thus were having a huge impact on fashion in general.
05:12Right.
05:13To caveat off that, was it shocking to you that they picked him, just with the brand DNA being, like you said, centuries old?
05:21They very, I feel like they were very a little particular about who was sitting at the helm of Louis Vuitton.
05:28And so, what were your thoughts when you saw that they picked Virgil to be at the helm of menswear?
05:33Well, I mean, this is a family audience, so I can't say exactly what I said.
05:41But, yeah, I was shocked.
05:43Yeah, yeah, yeah.
05:43And, you know, when the shock settled down, there was a part of me that sort of understood it on a very kind of, you know, economic level.
05:56Right, right.
05:56Right.
05:57I mean, the audience for luxury apparel needed to grow.
06:02Yeah.
06:02The obvious audience was becoming much more diverse.
06:06Right, right, right.
06:06It was no longer rooted in Europe.
06:09I mean, it was much more global.
06:11Yeah.
06:11And Virgil had proved that he had an enormous following because, in addition to the work he'd done at Off-White, he was also a DJ.
06:20Yeah.
06:20But, you know, the thing that Virgil said after he got the job was, you know, he commented on the shock that people felt.
06:32Yeah.
06:32And he said, you know, why not me?
06:36Like, I was out there working.
06:38I was out there designing.
06:39So, why not me?
06:41Why were people so shocked?
06:42Right.
06:42And there were many people, myself included, who, in hindsight, said, why not him?
06:50Right.
06:50And what I love about the question is that he wasn't asking himself, why not me?
06:56Because he felt very confident about why it should be him.
07:01He was asking the question of the industry and forcing the industry to contend with its answer.
07:08No, definitely.
07:09And I think seeing just how certain brands, like even I think about Givenchy, you know, hiring Matthew, Alix, and really hiring some of these men
07:20in that specific era of the hood by airs and the Shane Olivers and the, you know, seeing now where they're sitting at, I think, you know, Shane at JPG or consulting over there.
07:31So, I think that kind of started this, I guess, following of, okay, maybe we should go to some of these people who are actually in the streets of New York, in the streets of Soho, who know what people are actually wearing, you know?
07:46And what I love about it is that so many of those guys were like in community with each other.
07:52There was so much overlap, there was so much conversation, so much cross-pollination of creativity, which, you know, designers certainly, you know, talked to each other before that.
08:07But this was different because they were such a community and they sort of fed off of each other's creativity.
08:14I mean, Matthew Williams described it like, and a lot of them also loved skateboarding.
08:21And Matthew Williams described it like, you know, you see your friend do like a nine rail trick on a skateboard and it makes you feel like you can do it too.
08:31Or you want to see if you can do, you know, an even better trick.
08:35And they felt that way about creativity and about design.
08:39Right, yeah, one of my favorite interviews is with Shane Oliver and Ian Isaiah and they were interviewing with Curran Frost and they were basically saying like, Virgil and Matthew were our interns.
08:52And I just think that's so funny, but it speaks to that community segment.
08:56Like they really were all at a time in New York and now have gone on to different fashion houses.
09:01I wanted to, as we kind of wrap up, I wanted to just talk about the importance of putting someone's life and work into a book and really sort of making sure that their work is now historic and in the history books.
09:16Just how important is that to you to actually write this piece of work and write this piece of history that now people will read and understand about Virgil?
09:24I mean, the first thing that I would say is like there are so many books to be written about Virgil.
09:30This is a book that focuses on the fashion part of Virgil, but there could also be a book about the DJ Virgil, about the Virgil who loved to do collaborations.
09:41And so the first thing, of course, is you want to be fair and you want to be able to speak to both the people who adored him and you want to speak to the people who had, you know, who were conflicted in their feelings about him and his creativity and how it worked.
10:00But the other reason is because there have been so many really influential, specifically black designers who laid the groundwork for Virgil.
10:12And parts of their small, small parts of their story are told in this book.
10:20And I think, you know, we need to be able to capture those people who have impacted the industry, particularly now at a time when so many people's stories and so many people's influences are under threat of being erased.
10:39Definitely, definitely. And I think we even spoke backstage about his optimism and just people not really understanding who he was.
10:47And so I wanted you to just speak to that a little bit, just about, OK, we know Virgil, the designer, but actually what in this book do you mention about him as a person?
10:57Yeah, I mean, the reporting of this book, you know, I learned, obviously, a lot about his DJing and his fashion and all of that and his collaborations with Nike.
11:11But the one real lesson that I feel like will stay with me is the fact that he described himself as an optimist and said that he chose optimism.
11:23And in hindsight, that just felt like such a powerful thing to say, because this was not someone who was burying his head in the sand.
11:34This wasn't someone who was naive or oblivious to the challenges.
11:38It was just someone who firmly believed that the next day could be better than the one before, who firmly believed that he could continue moving forward.
11:48If he couldn't go over the challenge or the hurdle, he could go around it or he could, you know, go under it if he needed to.
11:58And I just, you know, and that optimism led him to be a kind person.
12:05And so many people, that is the first thing that they said when they described him.
12:10They said, he's such a nice guy. And I love that someone who was nice succeeded.
12:17Someone who, like, embraced optimism and kindness, got the success that they were looking for.
12:25And I feel like that's just a real lesson that cruelty is unnecessary.
12:31Yeah, I was going to say it's hard to be nice when you have a lot of critique coming at you all the time.
12:37And for him to, for that reputation to still live on and for you to be able to write that in the book, I think is really important.
12:44I wanted to kind of end with, what is one hope that you get, or you hope that readers get from picking up this book, reading and understanding about Virgil's life and his legacy?
13:01You know, I would say that, I mean, you mentioned the criticism.
13:04And, you know, he took a lot of it from me as a critic.
13:11And, you know, he had a way of framing his work that I think in some ways protected him a bit from the criticism.
13:20Yeah.
13:20He talked a lot about his work as a practice.
13:24He was not someone who demanded perfection from himself in order to put something out.
13:30It was always about, this is a prototype, and he was on to the next thing.
13:35And that's very protective, because if someone is criticizing the work, there is a part of you that can say, well, that was a prototype.
13:43Like, I'm on to the next thing.
13:44Like, I'm making it better.
13:46I'm constantly making it better.
13:48So that's one big takeaway that I hope people are able to embrace.
13:54And I hope that, you know, they look at his work and look at the fact that he didn't always know exactly what he was doing.
14:06He didn't always know, you know, the sort of the formal way of going about something.
14:12But he took himself and he took his work seriously.
14:16He thought of himself seriously as a creative person.
14:19And the first step to any dream, so to speak, is to take your dream seriously.
14:26Yep, exactly.
14:28Well, I really love this conversation.
14:30Can we give it up for Ms. Robin?
14:31Give it one more time.
14:33Thank you so much.
14:34And I know you're pretty private on socials, but is there anywhere that people can follow you, maybe on Twitter or Instagram?
14:40I'm on Instagram.
14:41On Instagram.
14:42Okay, all right.
14:42Under just my regular name.
14:44Yes, awesome.
14:46All righty.
14:46Well, thank you all for joining this conversation.
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