“What time does everyone get lunch?" Virgil Abloh, creative director of menswear at Louis Vuitton, asks in a video shared on the brand’s Instagram story. It’s Abloh’s first day in office and he peers down a corridor at the atelier. A woman responds that, in fact, they are all waiting for him to decide. He laughs loudly, the booming sound warming up the quiet, echoey space. “Nah, it’s okay,” he smiles. “People can eat!"
The black and white footage, which plays out like a short film, gives us a rare sneak peek into Louis Vuitton’s atelier and the debut work of this newly-appointed designer. Typically, when there is a shake-up in creative director, not much is revealed until the runway (the first of which will take place in Paris this June). Abloh, however, has chosen to invite us into his world and share this landmark moment with the public.
Of course, Abloh doesn’t reveal everything on social media. The clip often shows him studying blurred-out images, clicking through mystery slideshows on his computer and laying out photographs of obscure garments on the floor. One shot in the video is titled “outerwear” but the unfocused image reveals nothing else. The video invites the viewer in, only to tease them with its own mystique. It’s the perfect recipe for hype and an unsurprising tactic from the founder of Off-White.
Still, the voiceover provides some clues in regards to Abloh’s thought process and aspirations for the brand. “The biggest goal with, like, a first collection in any scenario, is to sort of start, so that people can sort of understand the new vocabulary of who we are as this new team,” he says at a table discussion with his team. “What will be the introduction into this new vocabulary, is this sort of universal, but non-oversized, fit.”
Aside from this subtle hint, we’ll have to keep waiting if we want more details, but this first taste has already got us heading back to Instagram hoping for updates. The video, which was reposted by Hypebeast, will just continue to build on the (already enormous) buzz.
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