The plan is for Off-White to return to Paris Fashion Week next February. Meanwhile, Ib Kamara said, this pre-fall offer prefigures that runway restoration by returning to the source of what made the brand Virgil Abloh founded in 2012 such a driver of industry transformation: “Youth luxury. Playfulness. Street. Real clothes you want to wear with a lot of desirable details.”
Trenches in technical fabrics with decorative top-stitching, lace-edged leather dresses layered over jersey, washed denim patterned with the foundational house cross and other easter egg Off-White motifs, and evening wear cut with harness lapels were a few of the stories in the studio. Kamara said a research trip to Japan had inflected the collection: pearl or ruffle edged workwear, bra-overstitched hoodies, and pearlescent buttoned Maasai check tweeds and tailoring looked consequently kawaii. Beading, patches, and floral prints layered over pinstripe added to the cacophony. “I know the industry loves minimal, but I want Off-White to be optimistic and fun,” said Kamara: “And it’s very Off-White to deliver that twist.”
There was a comprehensive complement of core bag and sneaker styles too, and a lot of non-collection rails featuring instantly recognizable seasonal house “basics.” Through continued curation of the rich trove of language and codes laid down by its generationally influential founder, Off-White might, you’d imagine, eventually become the first heritage fashion brand born in the 21st century: a sort of luxury equivalent of Stussy, which since Shawn Stussy’s departure has been riffing on its founder’s equally distinct lexicon for nearly three decades now. As Kamara understands more than anyone, Abloh’s influence was undeniably monumental: Off-White should, in time, become his monument.
