The battle between Belgian menswear designer Walter Van Beirendonck and Virgil Abloh continues to rage on with Kanye West and Tremaine Emory (also known as Denim Tears) coming to the Off-White and Louis Vuitton designer’s defense.
As a top designer running one of the most prestigious label’s in fashion, Abloh has become a lightening rod for accusations of design theft as designers at the top of their game often are. His close association with West, who’s an even bigger lightening rod, has also helped to fuel some hostility toward Abloh and his efforts.
At the same time, because of the breakout success of Off-White as a streetwear label, the 39-year-old designer is also viewed by many as the face/voice of streetwear, making him something of a target for European-runway-rooted fashion critics whose opinions on the category until very recently can best be described as ranging from disdain to bewilderment.
Both West and Emory used a similar line of defense to push back on Beirendock’s claims that Abloh has stolen multiple design concepts from him. Rather than address the charges specifically, they’ve argued that it’s okay to steal from Beirendock because he’s openly used traditional African motifs and costumes to inform his own work.
On Twitter, Emory wrote, “If your a woman, poc, or/and lgbt take and manipulate what you want from the cannon of white male art all you want! A lot of it is was ripped from us anyway and if it wasn’t it was/is shoved down our throat as the standard above all else . So manipulate and flip as you like!”
Prior to the tweet, Emory used Instagram Live to publish a series of designs Beirendonck had acknowledged were inspired from the clothing and accessories worn by various tribes living in Africa. The topic of theft from African people is especially relevant to Abloh, whose parents were both born in Ghana.
Hi @WBeirendonck Virgil can do whatever he wants Do you know how hard it’s been for us to be recognized? Coming from Chicago?
— ye (@kanyewest) August 12, 2020
West also weighed in on Twitter where he implied a black designer can use whatever means necessary to gain attention. Addressing Van Beirendonck, West wrote, “Hi @WBeirendonck Virgil can do whatever he wants Do you know how hard it’s been for us to be recognized? Coming from Chicago?”
In an article covering the presentation, Abloh initially denied Van Beirendonck’s claims through a spokesperson who told WWD, “Van Beirendonck’s past work is not referenced in our spring 2021 collection. We never saw a collection of his with a similar treatment. The spokesperson noted the collection was inspired by stuffed animals Abloh bought in a children’s store near his studio in Paris in January 2020. “They integrate into garments and bags, animate them,” he explained.
Today on Instagram Stories, Abloh uploaded images showing that the creatures were rooted in a 2005 Louis Vuitton runway presentation where the label debuted its stuffed monogram DouDou Teddy bear.
Abloh also uploaded a wood sculpture of one of the mythical creates shown on the runway, tagged it with a Ghanian flag and labeled it “mine.”
A member of the oft lauded Antwerp Six, Beirendonck first accused Abloh of lifting his designs following the presentation of Louis Vuitton’s spring 2021 presentation in Shangai where some of the garments were adorned with “Zoooom with Friends” fabric animals and creatures, a design concept Beirendock claims he owns. The 63-year-old designer pointed to his fall 2016 presentation, which includes multiple looks featuring two- and three-dimensional creatures.
Van Beirendonck also claimed Abloh stole his mismatched sunglass design, a much less substantial claim given there are plenty of examples of designers playing with the symmetry of frames that precede Van Beirendonck .
In an interview with French reporter Jesse Brouns for Knack Weekend, Van Beirendonck stated, “Copying is nothing new. It’s part of fashion. But not like this. Not on that level, with their budgets, their teams, their possibilities. That’s what is shocking to me.
“It’s very clear that Virgil Abloh is not a designer. He has no language of his own, no vision. He can’t create something of his own season after season and that is painful. As for me, throughout all these years in fashion, I have patiently built up a signature language. That language is mine. It’s me. And he takes it, makes a copy of it. You can reinterpret things, do them in a different way. But this is just embarrassing. Meanwhile, Abloh gets a lot of money. He’s the one who cashes in.”
“I don’t want to sound bitter. I’ve experienced worse things as a designer. But again, that something like this can happen on that level, while designers like myself have it more difficult than ever, bothers me.”
Abloh introduced the concept of the mythical creatures in July with a Louis Vuitton animated film called “The Adventures of Zoooom with Friends,” which included cartoon versions of the characters that would figure large on the label’s spring 2021 runway, a show that closed with a giant, blow-up version of one of the characters.
