Following the unexpected death of Virgil Abloh, Off-White stores have gutted their shelves of merchandise, replacing clothing and homeware with blooming floral installations. Across London, Paris, Seoul, Hong Kong, Miami, New York, and Tokyo, palm fronds and jungle leaves spring from walls, while daisies, thistles, gerberas, and snapdragons carpet the floors – an homage reminiscent of the label’s SS20 show.
Fans of the designer have taken to his flagship outposts to leave heartfelt messages graffitied onto windows and post-it notes dotted about the greenhouse-like takeover. “Virgil Forever” has been looped onto LED message boards and shop fronts have been emblazoned with Abloh’s most famous quotes – ”Life is so short you can’t waste even a day subscribing to what someone thinks you can do versus knowing what you can do,” reads the Milan window.
“In a world where kindness is rare, where hierarchies still carry weight and where fashion can change the rules but sometimes ends up creating new ones, there was you,” the Off-White team captioned images of their tributes on Instagram. “Your extended family is heartbroken. We will miss you, Virgil. Your words constantly inspired us and gave us the courage to dare, to dream, to create. We’ll miss your WhatsApp messages, your laugh, your pure soul. We love you, Virgil.”
Abloh passed away on November 28 from a rare and aggressive form of heart cancer. Since then, tributes have flooded in from well known collaborators like Kanye, Bella Hadid, Frank Ocean, and Samuel Ross, and unknown, fledgling creatives, all of whom had been touched by Abloh’s prolific creativity and mentorship over the years. Read through the commemorative messages left by the designer’s fanbase here, and his own life in quotes here.