Virgil Abloh, by means of Louis Vuitton, is coming to a coffee table near you.

Set for release by Assouline on Sept. 15, “Louis Vuitton: Virgil Abloh” takes stock of the late designer and visionary’s work for the French maison, cataloging highlights from his eight collections for the home and endeavoring to tap into what inspired the mind that inspired so many.

Though it’s the primary book on Abloh for the reason that designer — who had been men’s artistic director at Louis Vuitton in addition to helming his own luxury label, Off-White — passed away in November 2021, he himself probably best described this glossy-page compilation of his work: “You’re witnessing unapologetic Black Imagination on display,” he wrote in a manifesto in July 2020 (spurred by the racial turmoil within the wake of George Floyd’s murder), which is showcased within the early pages of the book, though it speaks more broadly to the creative’s work.

With two silk clamshell collectible covers — one featuring the cartoon artwork by artist Reggieknow, who created the cult characters of Abloh’s spring 2021 show video called “The Adventures of Zoooom With Friends,” and one other taken from Louis Vuitton’s spring 2022 show in Miami that encompasses a sky-borne red hot air balloon with the home logo, a nod to Abloh’s embrace of youth — the book is an invite to assume before it’s even open.

Channeling the colourful world of Abloh throughout, author Anders Christian Madsen’s introduction opens on a sunshine yellow spread. His aim, as someone who collaborated with Abloh often, including on his July 2020 manifesto and show notes for his Louis Vuitton collections, appears to be getting the world to grasp Abloh the best way some in his inner world did. Not as the primary Black designer appointed to that role at Louis Vuitton, nor as someone who “intercepted” the heights of fashion with no fashion design background plus a penchant for streetwear, but relatively as someone who fiercely honored his childlike imagination, whose “mind was mind-blowing” and who had greater than every right to be positioned in considered one of fashion’s most distinguished design positions.

“The Boyhood Ideaology that framed his practice represented the unspoiled outlook of a toddler yet to be affected by the preconceived ideas of society. Employing fashion as his tool, Virgil desired to reset the preordained perceptions we tie to human genetics, body language and the best way we elect to decorate. He wanted to start out from scratch, where clothes were just clothes and humans simply humans,” Madsen writes within the introductory pages, that are interspersed with full-page images and spreads of Abloh in situ.

“Quite than intercepting the style establishment, Virgil was the breath of fresh air that saved it for a latest and fewer elitist age,” he continues.

The high-end hardcover is split into eight chapters, one for every of Abloh’s menswear collections for Louis Vuitton, which he considered chapters in a continuum relatively than seasonal one-offs to be forgotten by the following set of shows.

Chapter 1 begins with Abloh’s spring 2019 collection, titled “We Are the World,” his first for the style house. It catalogues images of the packed crowd sitting astride a rainbow runway within the Palais-Royal gardens in Paris; shots of the season’s accompanying campaign; full-page catwalk images, pop-ups that previewed the gathering; backstage shots of the designer adjusting his dressed models, and detailed images of the pieces, like a jacket embroidered with Dorothy from “The Wizard of Oz” sleeping in a field of poppies.

Addressing the “unexpected” imagery from the 1939 musical fantasy film, Madsen writes: “Along with his sharp sense of irony, Abloh used the film as an analogy for his own transition: the farm girl from the Midwest transported by a tornado to the fairy-tale land of Oz. On his runway, Oz was Paris, the Yellow Brick Road was the rainbow catwalk, Dorothy was Abloh and the Wizard was symbolic of the all-important imagination that had brought him there.”

The following chapters of the book and Abloh’s time with Louis Vuitton proceed in much the identical manner, with greater than 320 images aiming to capture the essence of his creations. At all times the colourful, the imaginative, the tradition bending; the limitless play with volume and placement; the playful — bouncy castles, balloons, pleated floral skirts in menswear; absolutely the twist on conformity; the choice perspective ever on offer — the “almost hallucinogenic displays of wonder.”

Reflections from Abloh’s friends and collaborators dot the book. One from creative studio PlayLab Inc., which worked alongside the designer to create among the most distinguishing elements of his runway shows (just like the branded bouncy castle for the spring 2020 Louis Vuitton Men’s show), reads: “We had never met someone such as you. I don’t think we even thought someone like you might exist, actually. You were absolutely nothing in need of magical. Every idea, DM, high five…it was all magic. You believed in us, and by doing so, you challenged us to make things we never had.”

Notably absent are any reflections from the late designer’s wife, Shannon Abloh, who stepped up as chief executive officer and managing director of the creative corporation her husband founded, Virgil Abloh Securities. Through it, she is going to proceed Abloh’s legacy and initiatives.

The book winds down with the unforgettable “Virgil Was Here” spring 2022 show in Miami, which got here just two days after the designer’s death, and Abloh’s final fall 2022 collection “Louis Dreamhouse,” that he’d designed and developed the presentation format for prior to his passing. The bookend to the coffee-table tome is a bonus: the whole catalogue of Abloh’s sneakers for Louis Vuitton.

For many who want greater than the Assouline Classics Collection edition, the publisher has also made an Ultimate Collection available, which can be packaged in a collectible box nodding to Abloh’s use of shipping crates in his collections, and can feature a separate compendium insert highlighting sneaker designs, including the Air Force 1 collection that dropped in July. The Classic edition retails for $120 and the Ultimate for $1,200. The inside content is identical for each covers within the Classics Collection in addition to within the Ultimate.

“Louis Vuitton: Virgil Abloh” can be available in Assouline boutiques and on its website Sept. 15.

[See the full Louis Vuitton and Nike “Air Force 1” by Virgil Abloh collection]

In Abloh’s own words, and because the book reveals page by page, “On runways and in campaigns, I realize my themes in my very own image: young men of color, who, in the longer term, might have the ability to mirror themselves within the historical reflection of luxury as much as any white boy down the road.”

From Louis Vuitton’s side, CEO Michael Burke writes within the book’s foreword, “In all he did, Virgil shone the best way. Well done, kid. You made it.”