On Tuesday afternoon, CFDA member designers gathered at the WSA building in New York City for the bi-annual CFDA membership meeting. The the room felt like walking into a family reunion. Camaraderie was high and glasses were clinking while the designers caught up with one another. With the top minds of American design on hand, there was also space to discuss business and opportunities to strengthen our collective.
Attendees included CFDA Chairman Thom Browne, Emily Adams Bode Aujla, Jasmin Larian, Michelle Ochs, Jonathan Cohen, Gigi Burris O’Hara, Jennifer Zuccarini, Rio Uribe, Kenneth Nicholson, Henry Zankov, Edmundo Castillo, Jeffrey Costello, Robert Tagliapietra, Bonnie Young, Ji Oh, Emily Smith, and more.
The meeting kicked off with fashion editor and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Robin Givhan discussing her soon-to-be-released book “Make It Ours: Crashing the Gates of Culture with Virgil Abloh” with her colleague, Washington Post fashion critic Rachel Tashjian.
Here, some highlights from Robin Givhan.
On her decision to write a book on Virgil Abloh: “After he passed away, there was clearly an outpouring of emotion and people sharing their memories and talking about how he affected them. Several had raised the question whether I had thought about doing a book about Virgil. I had not. The more I thought about it, the more it intrigued me. I had covered his work over the years and had been critical of a lot of it…but I was fascinated by the impact he had had and how people felt so connected with him…it was that that tension that I thought was really interesting.”
On including Ozwald Boateng and Edward Buchanan in the book: “When Virgil got the Louis Vuitton job, there were incredibly enthusiastic stories that cast him as the first Black designer at a European legacy house. It felt as if people had forgotten that Ozwald was at Givenchy, and Edward at Bottega Veneta. When Ozwald got the job, he made history, but it didn’t receive the kind of attention in the way that it did when Virgil got the Louis Vuitton job. I was curious to know what was different then to now.”
On connecting with Abloh’s parents in Illinois: “My plan – which I learned in Grad School for journalism – was to just show up. I took my previous book about The Battle of Versailles with a note to his parents explaining who I was and why I was working on the book…I was going to leave it at the front door. I rang the doorbell, and his mother opened the door. I introduced myself…his father invited me inside, and we talked about their son.”
How Virgil changed the idea of what a creative director is: “It had been changing for a long time, but his rise expanded to the point where the creative director doesn’t necessarily need to be a designer at all. The list of the responsibilities had been growing and growing but design was still always on that list. I think Virgil really served as a big shift, where taste, ideas, knowing what you like are still on the list but design has been pushed much further down.”
The appreciation of carefully-made beautiful design today: “I definitely think there are still customers who understand and seek it out, but it’s becoming much more a niche proposition. [Most customers] are drawn to brands and trends and price points that are enticingly low and pragmatic.”
The conversation was a perfect pair to the membership meeting, as the legacy and memories of the inimitable Abloh, who died in 2021, were relived amongst his CFDA fashion family.
We are so grateful for our community.
