Virgil Ablo was a boundary breaker and a cultural translator, a designer who made streetwear

luxurious and luxury feel accessible.

Ablo was the first black artistic director at Louis Vuitton and the visionary behind the fashion

brand off-white.

But beyond the runways, he built bridges between worlds that rarely intersected,

hip-hop and high fashion, skate culture, and couture. Pulitzer Prize-winning fashion critic Robin Givan

has written a new book called Make It Ours, which traces Ablo's unconventional path and the deeper

meaning behind his work. Jeff Bennett sat down with her to talk about Ablo's unconventional path and the deeper meaning behind his work. Jeff Bennett sat down with her

to talk about Ablo's legacy, his critics, and how his work helped redefine what fashion can say

and who it can speak for. Robin Gavon, welcome back to the News Hour. Thank you so much.

Virgil Ablo, his work span, music, architecture,

skateboarding, even DJing. You describe him as a remixer. What about his approach really allowed

him to drive innovation and fashion and design? I think some of it was just sort of his generation,

right? He came of age at a time of blogs, which

sounds so retro today, but, you know, blogs and Tumblr and Pinterest and just being able to kind

of cut and paste your way through inspiration on a computer. And he was also a DJ. And, you know, a DJ isn't necessarily writing the music.

They're taking melody and lyrics that someone else has created and they're putting their own

spin on it. They're remixing it. They're cutting and pasting it and essentially creating something

that, you know that has their mark.

You know, he hesitated to call himself a designer.

And I think some of that was because he recognized that he had a very different approach to aesthetics

than a lot of trained classical designers.

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