ABLOH AIR FLIGHT 002 SEATS EIGHT CHICAGO CREATIVES

Eight students, six nonprofits and eight schools make up ABLOH AIR Flight 002, the Creative Cohort the Virgil Abloh Foundation named on October 12, 2026. WBEZ counts it as the third cohort of the Foundation's Chicago mentorship program, which began as a ten student trip to London and Paris, and the partner column on the new list is nearly twice as long as the student column.

That ratio shows how far the program has moved from its pilot. A pilot that needed one itinerary now needs fourteen institutions to feed it.

Eight Students, Fourteen Partners

Flight 002 has eight participants, backed by six nonprofit partners and eight institutional partners, according to the Foundation's cohort record filed under Archive Code VAF.2026.AIR002. The Foundation describes ABLOH AIR as a structured mentorship and cultural immersion program built around access, exposure and creative leadership development, delivered through workshops, field study and dialogue, nationally and internationally.

The nonprofit side names Southside Sanctuary, Girls Opportunity Alliance, Guitars Over Guns, Chicago Scholars, After School Matters and Yollocalli. The institutional side is mostly Chicago high schools: the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools, Walter Dyett High School, Benito Juarez Community Academy, Victoria Soto High School, Robert Lindblom Math and Science Academy, Jones College Prep and Kenwood Academy, plus Art in Motion.

Not one partner is a fashion house or a design school. Every name is a high school, a school program or a youth organization, so the pipeline starts where Chicago teenagers already are.

Flight 000 Carried Ten Students Over the Atlantic

Flight 000, the pilot, took ten Chicago students to London and Paris for nine days, leaving March 23 and returning April 1, according to Vogue's account of the trip. The students came from underrepresented backgrounds and had creative interests.

In London the group worked with Benji B at a South London studio to re record the score for the Louis Vuitton men's spring 2022 film Amen Break, per Vogue. Tremaine Emory walked them through the research behind his Denim Tears collections, and the students built their own mood boards afterward. Vogue reports that Benji B and Emory both insisted they were the ones learning.

Paris was the other half of the itinerary, and the city carries weight. Virgil Abloh ran Louis Vuitton menswear from 2018 until his death in November 2021, and the Foundation's first Institutional Record, filed June 1, 2026, already listed the ten student trip to London and Paris as its signature program.

Three Creator Series Conversations in Six Days

Between October 7 and October 12, three Creator Series conversations came out of the program, and they hint at what the cohort will be taught. BAFIC spoke on travel and grounding creativity in Series entry 006. Russell Winfield, entry 001, covered collaboration, constructive criticism and the role of empathy in creative leadership. Fabien Montique, entry 002, spoke about building creative relationships, navigating setbacks and learning through experience.

The numbering does not run in release order. AfroTech describes the program as a ten month course for 17 and 18 year olds with a monthly creator series, so each cohort sits in a working calendar, not a one off event.

WBEZ ran the program's profile on October 7, the day BAFIC's conversation came out, with Foundation Chief Creative Officer Athiththan Selvendran as guest, and said the third cohort would be announced within the month. The list arrived five days later.

Guitars Over Guns Puts a Music Pipeline in the Room

Guitars Over Guns is the partner that changes the cohort's shape. The Chicago program pairs working musicians with students in school and, according to After School Matters, it partners with that organization on a songwriting and music production program for Chicago teens. One teen from that program later spent a spring break in Italy studying fashion and art with the Virgil Abloh Foundation.

That is a music to fashion route running through a Chicago after school network, and Abloh's own career ran that route, from DJ sets to a Louis Vuitton runway. Placing Guitars Over Guns and Yollocalli, a youth arts program, beside Dyett and Lindblom turns the cohort into a cross section of how Chicago teens find creative work, not just fashion work.

One Executive Director, Three Programs

Dana Loatman was named the Foundation's first executive director in 2025, and ABLOH AIR now sits beside two other tracks on her watch. The first is a three month Chicago Bulls partnership for high school seniors pursuing creative careers. The second is the Post Modern Scholarship, which Abloh launched in July 2020 with $1 million, selects 60 scholars a year, and has awarded 220 scholarships to date.

The scholarship goes to Black college students and every scholar receives at least $10,000, so it sits at the far end of the path that ABLOH AIR starts: high school exposure first, creative career support second, college funding third.

The scholarship's 2027 application window closed Monday, October 12, 2026 at 11:59 a.m. EST, the same day the Flight 002 list went up. Eight seats opened at the front of that path while the application window at the far end shut for the year.