The New Age Man

The rules for menswear have changed radically in recent years thanks to an influx of urban designers who’ve eschewed stuffy and staid for cool and trendy. We dissect how it has altered the very fundamentals of style

- Ben Chin

Less than a decade ago, the landscape of men’s fashion was a different place. Athleisure hadn’t yet become a thing; hoodies had yet to make the transition from high street to high fashion, and Off-White was still (kinda) Pyrex Vision, a brand conceived by Virgil Abloh with a one-off collection of Renaissance art and collegiate typography silkscreened on cheap deadstock Champion apparel. It was almost unimaginable that Abloh, who has no formal training in fashion design, would one day take the reins of menswear at Louis Vuitton, one of the world’s most valuable luxury brands.

And yet, it’s equally difficult to imagine men’s fashion without the influence of Abloh, whose successful blending of luxury and sportswear, or at least sports-inspired wear, made Off-White a bona-fide, buzzy success. The minimal streetwear label, known for its logo-centric industrial vibe and graphic arrows, is a hit amongst the millennial crowd whose attention (and expanding wallets) are much sought-after by the old guard luxury houses. Abloh’s appointment at Louis Vuitton in 2018 was no doubt a savvy move by LVMH’s Bernard Arnault to invigorate the brand.

Abloh’s reach and influence amongst the fashion-hungry Gen Z set is no doubt bolstered by his ethos of inclusivity. For Off-White’s spring/summer 2018 show in Paris, he announced the time and location on Instagram to his 3.7 million followers, inviting them to show up. Many brands use social media for marketing but Abloh harnessed the platform’s immediacy and reach in a more intimate way. When he showed up, guerrilla-style, for a signing of his cover appearance on System magazine, fans tracked him on social media and showed up en masse, the numbers no doubt boosted by Naomi Campbell’s Instagram story at the event.