Transcriptions and Relative Novelty: Virgil Abloh’s Design Strategies

Abstract Virgil Abloh’s design strategies are among the most recognizable in the current fashion world. This paper aims at exploring the American designer’s relevance and relates his practice to contemporary theorizations of creativity. By focusing on Abloh’s ways of creating the new, the article argues that Pyrex Vision, Off-White, and Louis Vuitton men’s collection garments, footwear, and accessories blend the participatory culture of Instagram and other internet platforms with strategies of modern art. Appropriation, mounting, and other techniques of reusing preexisting forms, materials, and signs provide both a moment of recognition of what is known, as well as an element of novelty which is a necessary prerequisite of a product in the ecosystem of social media-driven attention deficit. The author concludes by analyzing Abloh’s practice within the context of the emergence of the enrichment economy.