This will eventually be a review of Virgil Abloh’s resort 2017 collection, but first, the incident at Abloh’s book signing for “You Cut Me Off” aka the “Paris Book Melee,” a moment in time that was surreal on multiple levels. The event no doubt set a new high for drama levels for a Colette book party (or possibly any book party of all times), and definitely Twitter was highly entertained by the scene of Abloh calmly and politely signing his book (whose title foreshadowed the whole mess!) while chaos swirled around him like a Mr. Krab meme. And yet, all told it wasn’t the best look for anyone present. Abloh is widely liked in streetwear for his affable nature, but like any personality trait, one’s best quality can be one’s worst enemy, in this case one could say the message sent via over-tolerance of certain individuals in serious need of a time out, at the least.
When There’s Internal Beef Popping Off But You Just Wanna Sign Some T Shirts And Listen To 90s Deep House pic.twitter.com/1T7nmlJlY1
— Banks (@ANKSBAY) June 23, 2016
And now on to the clothes. Well, the collection was excellent. One can sense from season to season that Abloh struggles with how to mark his brand; to logo or not to logo, that is the question, live by the horizontal stripe/die by the horizontal stripe, and with resort 2017, he expresses Off White with quiet confidence through a combination of street-friendly camo fabrics, artful graphics, slacks with over-sized cuffs and the words “off” and “white,” discreetly affixed to the backs and fronts of tops with the best piece the menswear-inspired striped smock top, so fun and of the moment.
Abloh closed the collection, titled with a deconstructed camo extravaganza that gives a nod to the everything-is-everything trend, an item that perhaps helped Abloh exorcise or keep at bay the portion of his brain appreciative of drama and excess, aka that which runneth over the cup at Colette.
