OFF WHITE IS KINDA COOL

Ok. Off-White is mostly known for their streetwear pieces, with the quotes and stripes all over. But, since 2016, Virgil Abloh has made a commitment to host his own runway shows. What kind of runway experience does such a shitty, one dimensional brand have to offer? Well in the beginning, it was about as lame as you’d expect. On the runway, Off-White was just as uninspired(if not more) as its streetwear counterpart, but somehow in an entirely different way.

In the streetwear department there are a million different ugly ass pieces from Off-white 2018 and before that utilize the same repetitive over-branding, stripes, arrows, and things in “QUOTES”. Virgil has never tapped into any of that hack energy for the runway though. Instead he tapped into his high fashion copycat creative essence.

I’m talking basic cuts and drab colors. Unoriginal and uninspiring. Really just a mess. Virgil was heralded as an ambassador of youth culture, so why were the runways so played out looking? Look at this guy, from FW17. A trench coat, crewneck, trousers, chelsea boots? What is he wearing that you haven’t seen before? The colors and the tailoring are drab and mooks. This looks like something a freshman FIT fashion major would put together for real. At least the location is cool looking.

But it’s 2019 now, almost 2020, and it seems that Virgil’s method of reiterating the same themes with improved aspects has finally paid off, as this year Off-White’s runway shows reached a quality that hasn’t been seen before from either aspect of the brand, streetwear or high fashion. What got added to the mix that wasn’t there before? Well, the streetwear component of the brand’s streetwear-high fashion fusion finally became more prominent. Although Off-White’s target audience has clearly been a younger and more urban one from the beginning, it’d be hard to tell that if you looked at it’s shows before this year. Now though there are streetwear elements such as sneakers and puffer jackets incorporated into the fits. From Virgil’s own mouth, streetwear brands such as JNCO jeans influenced the collection (Ironic since JNCO recently went out of business).

On top of the styles evolving, the presentation of the show has also been adapted for people like you and me instead of stuck up high fashion heads. The FW19 runway was done on a massive green screen, and images and videos were played over it on Off-White’s livestream(unbeknownst to the attendees), giving the true experience of the event to those who watched online. This played into the overall theme of the show, media influencing the way we look at things. It’s definitely worth a watch even for people who despise Off-White.