Designer Virgil Abloh, who passed away suddenly at the age of 41 in 2021, was the founder and creative director of his own brand, "Off-White," and held the position of Men's Artistic Designer at "Louis Vuitton," making him one of the most noteworthy figures in the contemporary fashion industry.
Representing a collaboration between street fashion and luxury, he broke new ground with various collaborations, creating works across a wide range of fields as a designer, creative director, architect, DJ, and more.
In addition to his works, his lifestyle and thoughts, which caused a sensation as an overwhelmingly minority "black designer" in the fashion industry, continue to influence many people.
A collection of such Virgil's key dialogues, "Dialogues" (Adachi Press) was published on July 15. The book records Virgil's creative philosophy and vision in chronological order, allowing readers to trace the evolution of his thought.
Moreover, the translator of the book, Sogo Hiraiwa, says that the words spoken there are filled with messages that can inspire and motivate people outside the fashion industry.
In this context, we asked Hiraiwa about the appeal of the book and what we can gain from Virgil's words.
PROFILE
Sogo Hiraiwa
Born in 1990 in Takayama City, Gifu Prefecture. After working at the editorial department of "i-D Japan", he went independent. As a freelance editor and writer, he contributes to literary, cultural, and fashion magazines, and is also involved in the planning and editing of books including Octavia E. Butler's "Bloodchild and Other Stories" (translated by Hikaru Fujii, published by Kawade Shobo Shinsha). This book is his first translation work.
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What was your initial impression of Virgil, and did it change through the translation process?
Honestly speaking, before I started the translation, I partially underestimated him. This has something to do with how Virgil was introduced in Japan, as my impression was that he was a designer leading the hype culture, somewhat akin to the "God of Sneaker Heads."However, upon reading the original interviews, dialogues, and triadic discussions included in this book, I realized that my judgement was premature. The biggest misunderstanding was that Virgil was a very logical thinker and an intellectual creator.
Virgil was able to approach both "purists" and "tourists." This phrase is one of the keywords in the book, and is in a sense, "Virgil language."
If we translate these words generally, purists could be seen as knowledgeable professionals, while tourists could mean curious amateurs. In this case, I used the terms "purist" and "tourist" for the translation procedure.
Generally, creators tend to approach either the purist or the tourist. They either create works based on the evaluation criteria within the industry, as long as the people who understand, understand, or go the other way towards commercialism, often referred to as selling out.
Virgil consciously avoided this binary opposition, connecting purists and tourists, and adopted an approach to communicate with more people at the same time. Through this, he pursued the possibility of new designs and fashion that reach both, and his own methodology.
Artists, especially those who believe in art for art's sake, tend to underestimate tourists, so people were surprised at his attitude of evaluating such people and attitudes.
In one of the dialogues included in this book, architect Rem Koolhaas even says, "I think you are the only one who has said anything positive about tourism in the last 10 years."
Of course, as a Japanese, I want to point out that we do have someone like Hiroki Azuma, who has "ゲンロン0 観光客の哲学" as his work.
I believe that they have overlapping points in the sense that they strategically discuss tourism as a keyword for the majority.
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