Big Bang Theory

Former protégé of Virgil Abloh, Samuel Ross is the designer and founder of four-year-old fashion house A-Cold-Wall, and now with his namesake Big Bang Tourbillon, he's Hublot's latest artist-ambassador

- Jonathan Ho

A FORMER PROTÉGÉ OF VIRGIL ABLOH, Samuel Ross is the designer and founder of the four-yearold fashion house A-Cold-Wall. Mirroring Hublot's trajectory, renaissance man Ross' breakneck rise to prominence has seen him collaborate with the biggest consumer brands of our time, from Oakley and Nike to Dr. Martens and Mackintosh. In 2019, Ross was awarded the prestigious Hublot Design Prize, and a year later he was announced as an official brand ambassador hence, finding himself Design Lead on his own namesake tourbillon. Augustan simply had to have a chat with this maverick who has walked in the footsteps of the design legends of our time.

You were spotted by Virgil Abloh on Instagram where you progressed from intern to his first design assistant. How has this shaped or refined your design instincts?

We both shared a background in more traditional design roles before moving into Fashion and Music. His, within an architectural firm, mine within an industrial design film and global advertising agency. This made for a seamless connection and manner of thinking, balancing the cultural sensibilities of the zeitgeist alongside the hard skills required to operate as multidisciplinary voices.

Virgil embodied the ability to socialise critical thought and generational dialogues into optimistic design solutions.

A layer of thinking was learnt.

Can working with such a fashion and design legend unduly influence your own?