There’s always a big question mark when the founder or creative director of a leading fashion house passes away, leaving a unique fingerprint of ingenuity, imagination and experimentation in their wake. However, as we’ve seen with the likes of Virginie Viard’s stellar work at Chanel following the passing of Karl Lagerfeld in February 2019, there’s always a way of paying tribute to the past while looking ahead to the future with respect and dignity, without losing a brand’s identity.
During Paris Fashion Week, two fashion houses – Issey Miyake and Off-White – have presented their SS23 collections following the passing of their respective designers, Japanese visionary Issey Miyake and the renowned Virgil Abloh, in the last 12 months.
While Miyake - who died in August - left his eponymous label in 2020, with Satoshi Kondo serving as its current creative director, his memory and vision has lived on through the label’s designs.
Earlier this week the brand opened its collection, entitled 'A Form That Breathes', to the sound of a songbird and John Legend’s ‘Imagine’ while a black-and-white image of Miyake – the first Japanese designer to debut at PFW – was projected on walls around the room.
Miyake was omnipresent in the colourful and expertly constructed collection too, from the delicate midi dresses with mesh panelling and spiked silhouettes, to the origami-esque blazers, bright blue, lime green and peach colour palette.
Meanwhile, Off-White’s 'CELEBRATION' collection showed the day before what would have been Abloh’s 42nd birthday (September 30) – a day that has been honoured by several of his friends and longterm collaborators including models Bella and Gigi Hadid, and Hailey Bieber on social media.
‘Progress is in process,’ Ibrahim Kamara, Off-White’s new image and art director said of the future of the brand, almost a year after Abloh’s passing in November 2021.
‘Virgil had already started working on this collection, so we moved parts and changed a few things here and there with his intentions in mind,’ he said, adding: ‘It had to ultimately come back to celebrating him.’
Ahead of Kamara’s PFW Off-White debut, the brand shared an Instagram post, featuring a model covered in blue paint in the sky. ‘A celebration of life, progress, and new work in process,’ read the invitation ahead of the show, with a promise to honour the ‘pillars that Virgil embodied: togetherness, kindness, freedom of thought, and ultimately, what it is to be human’.
Abloh’s Midas touch was clear throughout the SS23 collection – a cacophony of frayed hems and cutout detailing, tailored vests, flowers (hydrangeas and lilypads), blue everything, puffer jackets, leather dresses and faint skeleton-printed motifs.
A creative with a keen eye for giving a voice to political causes through design, Abloh and Kamara teamed up with visual artist Jenny Holzer to highlight the recent overturning of Roe v Wade in the US for the collection.
‘Coincidentally, this mood has fallen … just as anti-abortion laws are being reinstated in real time across America,’ said Kamara of the collection. ‘Today, we seek her voice as the overturning of Roe v Wade signals yet another setback.’
Off-White will sell a Holzer-designed T-shirt inspired by her 1986 artwork Truisms, featuring the phrase ‘Abuse of power comes as no surprise’. Proceeds from the sales of the top will go towards Planned Parenthood, according to Off-White.
