DM Fashion Book Exclusive: Off-White’s Virgil Abloh Said Among Candidates For Givenchy Post

Last month, DM Fashion Book exclusively reported that Italian fashion house Versace was in talks with Riccardo Tisci. Versace has made overtures to Tisci and held discussions in recent months (see it here).

Last week, we officially confirmed that Riccardo Tisci has exited the French house Givenchy, after 12 years at the helm (see it here). His last collections were the Fall/Winter 2017 Men’s and Fall 2017 Couture, which was shown last month (see it here).

A couple of days after we reported that Tisci has exited Givenchy, we reported that sources said Versace is zeroing in on a signature with Tisci, even as the company reiterated that it does not comment on rumors. Versace is making final tweaks to its organization to welcome the 42-year-old designer (see it here).

In the latest news, sources say Givenchy has held talks with the U.S. designer Virgil Abloh, who is also the man behind the Off-White label, and was once Kanye West‘s creative director.

Could Virgil Abloh be Riccardo Tisci‘s successor at the French house?

Asked about the Abloh rumors, a spokeswoman for the house said on Monday that it had no comment, according to WWD. Reached on Monday, Abloh also declined to comment on Givenchy specifically, though he reiterated his previously stated aim of eventually taking the reins of a leading luxury house. “My trajectory is to update and provide something new in the fashion industry by way of creating a project and using it as a case study on how to update a luxury house,” he told WWD.

Virgil launched Off-White in 2013 as a streetwear brand, but it transcended into an upscale runway collection. The brand was a finalist of the 2015 edition of the LVMH Prize for Young Fashion Designers, alongside Gvasalia’s Vetements. This is all starting to make sense, because Abloh has already caught the eye of LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, which owns Givenchy.

Abloh is one of the most innovative people in streetwear that Black youth could relate to and connect with. He’s a prime example that a brand which started off as streetwear could now be sold at Barneys, Saks 5th Avenue, and Bergdorf Gooman, on the same floor as other luxury brands. Thanks to Kanye West, Virgil Abloh has a major fashion platform and has been called the “Maestro of Elevated Streetwear” by Vogue.

Trained as an engineer and architect, Abloh rose to prominence as a DJ, cofounder of Chicago concept store RSVP Gallery. The Chicago-born designer has collaborated with everyone from Takashi Murakami to Tisci himself.

Photos Credit:  Kim WestonArnold / Indigital.tv