Virgil Abloh has announced a new $1 million scholarship fund set to benefit “students of academic promise of Black, African-American, or African descent.”
Taking to Instagram to reveal details of what he’s named ‘The Virgil Abloh “Post-Modern” Scholarship Fund, the Off-White designer wrote “Anyone that’s ever been in a meeting with me or a creative brainstorm or even a random iMessage chat knows that I’m forever fighting for the ‘17-year-old-version’ of myself. What that specifically means is… all I want is for any young black kid to achieve a shorter path to their career goals, and if I can help with an open source approach to opening doors or messaging ‘how-I-did-it along the whole way, then I’ve done my real job, not my actual job.”
With the fund set to continue to grow, the initial $1 million is made up of a donation from Abloh himself, as well as further financial contributions from partners including Louis Vuitton, Evian, and Farfetch. “I’m putting money, my resources, and my rolodex where my mouth is. The goal is to make sure I’m not one of the few, but one of the many in my industry,” he added in the IG post.
Earlier this week, Abloh revealed he is is set to take his next Louis Vuitton menswear collection all the way to Shanghai, where he’ll present the offering as part of an IRL, open to the public event. With the show teased on IG (where else?) via a short animated film, a second, longer version will be released as part of Paris Fashion Week’s digital line-up this afternoon.
Revisit the AW20 Louis Vuitton show in the gallery above.