Pulitzer Prize-winning cultural critic Robin Givhan joins Monica L. Miller, professor and co-curator of Superfine: Tailoring Black Style , the Costume Institute exhibition now on view at The Met, for a conversation about the crossroads of fashion, culture, identity, and art — and the life of the great designer Virgil Abloh, as told in Givhan's new biography, Make It Ours: Crashing the Gates of Culture with Virgil Abloh . The first Black designer to serve as artistic director of Louis Vuitton in the brand's 164-year history, Virgil Abloh's appointment as head of menswear in 2018 shocked the fashion industry. Blurring the lines between luxury and streetwear, Abloh embodied a new way forward for his industry — and in her spellbinding new biography, Givhan shows that Abloh's story is the story of a revolution in fashion and culture, a story that upends a century's worth of ideas about race, class, creativity, and taste. Hear Givhan tell that story — from his early career as an architect to his complex relationship with mentor Kanye West to his meteoric rise and tragic death at 41 of a rare form of cancer — honoring the legacy of a singular creative force whose influence is still rippling through American culture. "Robin's look into the life and work of the late, great, Virgil Abloh is thoughtful, intelligent, honest, and masterfully crafted. Virgil's freethinking and influence on the possibilities of what creativity can be was a tour de force." — Marc Jacobs
