Make It Ours: Crashing the Gates of Culture with Virgil Abloh

已故前LV男裝藝術總監、Off-White創辦人Virgil Abloh傳記

看維吉爾・阿布洛（Virgil Abloh）如何以破格之姿登上時尚產業巔峰，並引領一場深刻變革——顛覆我們「是誰」與我們「穿什麼」之間的關係。

「深思熟慮、充滿智慧與誠實，極具藝術性……維吉爾對創意可能性的自由想像與影響，是一場勢不可擋的風暴。」

——馬克・雅可布（Marc Jacobs）

2018年，維吉爾・阿布洛被任命為路易威登（Louis Vuitton）男裝創意總監，震驚整個時尚界。他是品牌164年歷史中首位擔任此職的黑人設計師。然而，正如普立茲獎得主、文化評論家羅賓・吉文（Robin Givhan）所揭示的，阿布洛的故事遠不止於此。

透過阿布洛令人意外的崛起之路，吉文展開一場更宏大的敘述：關於時尚界這個向來封閉、講求排他性的世界，如何在街頭潮流與新世代設計師的衝擊下掀起革命；他們對「奢華」的重新定義，不僅預示了消費者品味的轉變，更徹底顛覆了它。一件T恤所蘊含的文化力量，有時甚至不亞於一件高級訂製服。

阿布洛在一個特殊的時代崛起——那時，時尚產業正為自身在多元文化時代的角色感到迷惘，同時也在思考如何向迷戀球鞋、重視舒適感的年輕世代銷售「地位」。一個未曾受過打版或剪裁正規訓練的人，竟能成為時尚界的希望與象徵，《Make It Ours》的核心，正是這段非凡的歷程。

這不僅是一本關於一位獨特創意天才的精彩傳記，更是一部關於時尚與種族、品味與排他、天賦與奢華的深刻省思。吉文獲得阿布洛家人、好友、合作夥伴與業界同輩的珍貴訪談資料，並描繪出一群引人入勝的角色，包括黑人設計先驅奧斯瓦爾德・博阿滕（Ozwald Boateng）與阿布洛的重要導師——難以捉摸卻關鍵的肯伊・威斯特（Kanye West）。

Virgil Abloh's iconic rise to the top of the fashion industry embodied a groundbreaking transformation of the relationship between who we are and what we wear.

Abloh's appointment as head of menswear for Louis Vuitton in 2018 shocked the fashion inudstry, as he became the first Black designer to serve as artistic director in the brand's 164-year history. But as Pulitzer Prize–winning culture critic Robin Givhan reveals, Abloh's story encompasses so much more than his own journey.

Using Abloh's surprising path to the top of the luxury establishment, Givhan unfolds the larger story of how the cloistered, exclusive fashion world faced a revolution from below in the form of streetwear and designers unafraid to storm the gates—how their notions of what was luxury simultaneously anticipated and upended consumer preferences, and how a simple T-shirt held as much cultural power as a haute couture gown. As Givhan relays, Abloh rose during a time of existential angst for a fashion inudstry trying to make sense of its responsibilities to a diverse audience and the challenges of selling status to a generation of consumers who fetishized sneakers and prioritized comfort. How that moment came to be—how someone like Abloh, who had no formal training in patternmaking or tailoring, could come to symbolize and embody the industry's way forward—is the story at the heart of this book.

Make It Ours is at once a remarkable biography of a singular creative force and a powerful meditation on fashion and race, taste and exclusivity, genius and luxury. With access to Abloh's family, friends, collaborators, and contemporaries, and featuring a cast of fascinating characters ranging from visionary Black designers like Ozwald Boateng to Abloh's mercurial but critical employer and mentor Kanye West, Givhan weaves a spellbinding tale of a young man's rise amid a cultural moment that would upend a century's worth of ideas about luxury and taste.