Analyzing Louis Vuitton’s FW 21 Menswear (Part 1: The Ideologies)
Virgil Abloh convinced his onlookers to change their hyper-normative notions for a color inclusi-visualistic platform for everyone to thrive on.
In the following paragraphs I will mention the umpteen amount of reading and research that went into understanding this masterpiece of a collection, especially the concepts and ideologies which are depicted through it all. Although it would be informative to read these parts in order, if you wish to, here is what Abloh decided to visualize in Clothing and the Presentation Narrative for the collection.
The collection was made by the collaboration of Abloh and Laurence Weiner, an artist known for bold typography, one of his famous quotes being:
“Art is that tiny little thing that you do not want to fuck up someone day to work, it should fuck up their whole life”.
Through expressive and rather gaudy use of visual language with words, stark opinions were shown across all the pieces used to create the 70 looks in the presentation, out of which 59 were donned by models of color.
Each syllable has a meaningful symbolism behind it, which correlates to the essay ‘Stranger in the Village’ written by James Baldwin. The writing focuses on how Baldwin was considered inhuman because of his color, to the residents of a village of Switzerland.
All of the references taken by Abloh are presented with the terms explained below. I also include my thoughts towards these statements for the sake of a viewer’s perspective.
If you stop somewhere to question that I am over-analyzing, then take a moment to think what you would do if you would’ve been in Abloh’s shoes. Creating a collection unlike the brand’s previous ones requires over-analyzing each step of the process.
Archetype to Neotype
‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ is the introductory statement given by Abloh in his 73 pages long show-notes for the collection. As kids, our answer to this question is innocently what is out there that we have seen with such naïve knowledge.
Yet, Abloh believes that our subconscious bias is always at play to guide us to the safest path of life’s journey.
Occupational, gender and racial stereotyping starts from a young age: The officer isn’t supposed to be one if ‘he’ isn’t wearing his uniform. The artist isn’t so much of a creative person if ‘he’ isn’t drenched in paint stains and living in homeless ways.
If the way we dress, the color of our skin, our height, hair, race and x number of factors define the norm we fit in, then it is worth questioning how these norms came to be.
Abloh defines fashion as a tool to dress the part. We are people who judge books by their covers, and behave likewise with strangers. A notion Abloh wanted to instill was to break these archetypes.
Thus, Fashion wields the power to either continue with the archaic methods of ‘dressing the part’ for your career, or better, it could be a tool to shift the power dynamics of the systems and make us all equal for a job opportunity which originally belonged to a white collared society.
Same Place at the Same Time
“Arriving at the same place at the same time”, quoted by Lawrence Weiner, we see this bold sans-serif statement around straps of sling bags, always worn by the model across the body from one shoulder.
The quote is never visible completely, making us ponder upon what the entirety is, as at first I read it as ‘Solace at the same Time’ which, surprisingly, falls within the explanation and meaning behind the actual phrase.
It is not possible for all of us to live harmoniously if we are not in the right mindset at the same place and the same time.
The phrase being incomplete with the way the bag is supposed to be worn depicts the shrouded second half for the solution to any problem (especially gender/race/sexuality stereotypes) omnipresent since archaic times.
Tourist vs. Purist
Read Outsider vs. Insider. Theoretically, the phrase can be used to compare any two people, parties, communities, caste, gender and any social similarity you can imagine. The Outsiders are devoid of the knowledge they wish to know, while the Insiders are the ones who have inhabited it while growing up.
So are you a Tourist, who is here to grasp all the knowledge? Or a Purist, who already is well-aware of the privileged surroundings many crave to touch? In your work, do you think the Tourist way with little information, or the Purist way, with a complete map of the white black, greys and everything in between?
The phrase is highly used as a typographic semantic throughout the accessories (especially bags) in the collection. That being said-
A Purist may not be at The Same Place at the Same Time to be a part of the revolution, while a Tourist would want to achieve that timing to ignite it.
(Don’t) Go Fish
The Show Notes define Go Fish as ‘…an innate reaction of human beings when first gazing upon an object to relate it to something they’ve seen before — often before seeing the nuance of the object.’
Oh I definitely went a-fish as soon as I glanced on to the drape and called it a saree. My mind immediately related the attire to sarees, which is theoretically incorrect as the drape is of the Ghanian kente cloth, yet I am culturally biased to refer to something with a knowledge I already have, like the check from Madras.
Thus, keep in mind to NOT Go Fish while perceiving something, assume nothing.
Hope
The term hope is loosely used in various connotations throughout the literature referenced to bring the collection to life. We see hope in a better context in the recent Seoul Presentation of LV FW 21 Menswear Collection (more on that in later articles), but we do see its power in full force in the essay, quote
“When one considers the history of the Negro in America it is of the greatest importance to recognize that the moral beliefs of a person, or a people, are never really as tenuous as life-which is not moral-very often causes them to appear; these create for them a frame of reference and a necessary hope, the hope being that when life has done its worst they will be enabled to rise above themselves and to triumph over life.”
It is the hope that everything will be better as we are in the right place at the right time.
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The Plot, Symbolism and Clothing aspect of the presentation will be covered further in the upcoming segments of the analysis. This analysis would not have been this detailed without Bliss Foster. Definitely have a look at his research for the collection as well.
References:
Stranger in the Village by James Baldwin
Coded Language by Saul Williams
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What were your thoughts on the collection? Feel free to take any information for your own use on credit.
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