Fashion designer Virgil Abloh has sold a majority stake of his staple brand Off-White to Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton (LVMH) in an expansion of a partnership between both parties. According to a press release, LVMH will acquire a majority stake in Off-White LLC, resulting in 60 percent ownership of the label with Abloh remaining lead creative director. He will also continue as artistic director of Louis Vuitton’s menswear collection, a role he’s held since 2018.
“We are thrilled to expand our successful partnership with Virgil. We have already had the privilege of witnessing Virgil’s exceptional creativity and vision through his work with us at Louis Vuitton,” said Bernard Arnault, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of LVMH. “We look forward to supporting Virgil and the team both in driving the growth of Off-White™️ and in working together with Virgil to bring his unique sensibility to a broader range of luxury categories.”
The deal brings new territory in the fashion industry for the DJ. Together, the fashion designer and LVMH will launch new brands and partner with existing ones in a variety of sectors beyond the fashion world.
“For nearly a decade, we’ve been building Off-White™️ to be a brand designed to empower our generation and challenge the status quo. LVMH brings to the table the additional firepower and scale to accelerate our momentum and evolve Off-White into a truly multi-line luxury brand,” explained Abloh.
He continued, “I’m incredibly excited to work together with LVMH on other possible collaborations—an evolution of the great relationship I have had with LVMH, Bernard Arnault, Michael Burke at Louis Vuitton, and others. I’m also honored to use this partnership to deepen my longstanding commitment to expand opportunities for diverse individuals and foster greater equity and inclusion in the industries we serve. This is an incredible new platform to take the disruption we’ve achieved together to a whole new level.”
In January, VIBE reported Abloh teamed up with Nike to release the book ICONS on his contributions to sneaker culture.
“The foundation of my practice isn’t nearly the end result—it’s rigor and process of the logic. The archive is the paper trail of those artifacts,” said Abloh. “The ICONS book is, in a way, the only revealing lens to understand that the catalog of the 50-plus Nike shoes I have designed are in my mind ‘one shoe.’ One story.”