Intense Creativity Made the Late Designer Virgil Abloh a $100M Fortune

Calculating designer Virgil Abloh's net worth at the time of his death in 2021 from cardiac angiosarcoma (a type of cancer) depends very much on whom you ask. WealthyGorilla.com and CelebrityNetWorth.com has his financial haul at $100 million. The UK's Sun newspaper has it closer to $20 million. What's not in dispute is Abloh's groundbreaking career as a cultural tastemaker, most notably as a fashion designer, at Louis Vuitton and for his own label Off-White. He was also a creative director, brand designer, and DJ. Considering, Abloh was interning at the fashion house Fendi in 2009 for $500 a month, his ascent is nothing short of remarkable.

Abloh was born on September 30, 1980, in Rockford, Illinois, a Chicago suburb, to Ghanaian immigrant parents. His mother was a seamstress, and his father managed a paint company. Abloh graduated from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 2002 with a Bachelor of Science degree in civil engineering and earned a Masters degree in Architecture from the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) in 2006. While studying for his Masters Alboloh designed T-shirts on the side and wrote about fashion and design for the blog Brilliance. Kanye West proved a pivotal influence in Abloh's career, having first met him while working on the rapper's designs at a Chicago print shop.

Working With Kanye

Virgil landed a coveted internship in Rome for luxury designer Fendi after completing his Masters. One of his fellow interns was fellow Illinois native, Kanye West — already a famous producer/rapper and all-round celebrity. Unbelievably the two iconoclasts only received $500/month while interning at Fendi!

It was inevitable that the two would soon start collaborating on designs. In 2010 Virgil launched the Chicago-based retail store RSVP Gallery, while during the same year he also became the director of Kanye's creative agency Donda. The following year, Kayne hired Virgil again to be the artistic director on his collaboration album with Jay-Z, "Watch The Throne." Their paths would remain intertwined in fashion with Virgil’s future employer, LVMH, once offering to back Yeezy, before eventually pulling out.

Speaking of his admiration for Virgil, West told WSJ Magazine, “One of my best friends was crowned king. Virgil. Louis Vuitton. We grew up on Louis Vuitton – Marc Jacobs duffels,” he said. “My best friend.”

While pay-for-hire jobs with Kanye weren't particularly lucrative, his next endeavor would provide the bulk of his fortune,

Off-White

The Milan-based fashion-label Off-White was undoubtedly one of Virgil's greatest successes. Formed in 2013, the women's wear line was shown at Paris Fashion Week the following year. The company manufactures all its products in Milan. It supplies them to Off-White stores and other upscale retail outlets like Barneys, Selfridges, Harrods, and Le Bon Marché. A sense of irony (words appear in chunky quotation marks), celebrity endorsements (Rihanna, Kanye, and A$AP Rocky), and seizing the fashion zeitgeist of the time, resulted in massive success. It became known for $1,000 sweatshirts, iconic phone cases, and headline-grabbing collaborations.

Ultimately, Off-White became known for its very expensive streetwear, primarily T-shirts, hoodies, and sneakers, which were championed by rich kids and celebrities. In 2015 Beyoncé wore a palm print sweatshirt with the word Nebraska on it from Off-White's womenswear collection in a video with Nicki Minaj. The same year, Off-White was named a finalist for the LVMH Prize. In 2016. the company's first concept store was launched in the Aoyama area of Tokyo, and Off-White's Grey Area furniture collection debuted in Milan.

His collaboration with Nike (2017's "The Ten" shoe collection), was a game changer. He created another Nike collection dedicated to Serena Williams and, in a blistering 12-month period, completed campaigns for Champion, Le Bon Marche, Selfridges, SSENSE, KM20, TheDoubleF, Gore-Tex, Browns, Timberland, Burton, Jimmy Choo, Chrome Hearts, Vivendi, Rimowa, Hirshleifers, Ikea, Kith, Equinox, A-Cold-Wall, Burton, Grog, and Sunglass Hut. With Alboh maintaining the majority ownership stake in Off-White, it was clear he was due for a significant payday if or when he eventually sold the company.

In 2018 Luis Vuitton named Virgil Abloh its new menswear designer with an annual salary of $10 million. In 2021, LVHM also agreed to buy a 60% stake in Off-White, though the fee was not disclosed. Off-White had an annual income of $354 million at the time of its sale. Given these numbers, it's not difficult to see how Virgil Abloh was worth $100 million.

Conclusion

To have achieved so much at just 41 is a testament to Abloh's talent and determination. His friendship with Kanye West undoubtedly helped put Virgil on the map. However, the mercurial West wouldn't have helped catapult his friend's career had he seen Abloh's unbridled talent. A piece in Vox, in 2018 attempted to throw a little shade on the Off-White phenomenon, attributing the West friendship and Abloh drawing heavily on the influence from other designers. However, that's always the way in successful circles, talent always influences talent, and like-minded people tend to stick together.

However, in the case of Abloh, a Master's in architecture gave him a solid foundation in design, proportion, and aesthetics. It was perhaps also his Ghanaian immigrant background that was his most significant influence. Hard work and stability, marrying his high school sweetheart and the father of their two kids, proved that there was a stable foundation underpinning Abloh's success.

Certainly, more so than his celebrity friends and the influencer taste masters that fed off his creations. He was a safe pair of hands in which corporations could invest cash. It's a shame we won't see how far he could have gone.