Kanye Hugged Virgil Abloh After His Louis Vuitton Debut

Virgil Abloh walked a 200 metre rainbow runway in the Jardin du Palais Royal for his bow on June 21, 2018, and the hug Kanye West gave him at the end of it closed a loop that opened at Fendi in 2009, when the two men interned in the same class, a path that ran through no fashion school at all. The man filming part of the embrace, Takashi Murakami, was in Paris because his own exhibition with Abloh opened at Gagosian on rue de Ponthieu two days later. The Fader called it "a long, and emotional hug," and Murakami captioned his clip "Emotional! @louisvuitton show."

That is the whole story in one frame: the artist behind the 2007 Graduation artwork filming the 2009 Fendi interns, one of them now Louis Vuitton's men's artistic director, the other crying in the front row.

Off White to Violet Across 200 Metres of the Palais Royal

The runway ran the full 200 metres of the gardens, painted as a rainbow from off white through red, yellow, green, blue and violet, according to the architect James Taylor Foster, who documented the day for Pin Up. Fifty six looks came down it, and every guest found a dictionary on the seat titled The Vocabulary According to Virgil Abloh.

The show notes listed each model's birthplace and the birthplaces of their parents. The garments It's Nice That picked out were tie dye printed loose fitting trousers, utility vests, sheer shirting, tailored trench coats, all white hoods and cross body bags hung with coloured chains. Taylor Foster noted the bench trims held T shirts in the same colours as the catwalk, and Abloh told him, "It'll be very evident whether you have the shirt or not."

Read the silhouette and the signal is plain. Loose trousers, a sheer shirt and a trench on a 200 metre runway in a royal garden is a man telling the old guard he has the keys and intends to let his friends in.

Track One of ye Reached the Runway Before Kanye Did

Kid Cudi walked to "I Thought About Killing You," the opening track of ye, which West had released 20 days earlier on June 1, 2018, per NME. BADBADNOTGOOD played the rest of the show live and covered "Ghost Town" from the same album.

The cast was a roll call of Abloh's circle rather than an agency board: Playboi Carti, Dev Hynes, Steve Lacy, A$AP Nast, Octavian and the Palace skaters Lucien Clarke and Blondey McCoy. Rihanna, Kim Kardashian, Kylie Jenner, Travis Scott and A$AP Rocky sat in the audience.

So West's album was on the soundtrack and West's friends were on the catwalk before West himself stood up. When Abloh came back along the runway for his walk, Taylor Foster's diary records the organ throb from BADBADNOTGOOD and then four words: "Kanye's crying. Virgil's crying."

Murakami Had a Second Opening Two Days Later on Rue de Ponthieu

Technicolor 2, the Murakami and Abloh exhibition, ran at Gagosian Paris, 4 rue de Ponthieu, from June 23 to July 28, 2018, after a first show at Gagosian London from February 21 to March 7, 2018. Murakami's phone was at the Palais Royal on June 21 because his collaborator's Louis Vuitton debut landed 48 hours before their joint opening.

The link between the two was West. Murakami drew the interior artwork for Graduation, released September 11, 2007, Abloh became creative director of West's Donda agency in 2010, and the Beverly Hills show that followed in October 2018 put 35 works at Gagosian and sold screenprints in editions of 300 signed by both men.

June 2018 stacked three Abloh releases inside three weeks. The Off White Rimowa transparent polycarbonate carry on was unveiled on June 5 and went on sale June 25, the Louis Vuitton show ran June 21 and the Paris exhibition opened June 23.

Forget the Front Row. Abloh Said the Dream Was Kanye's.

Abloh sat with Naomi Campbell for British Vogue at Louis Vuitton's Paris headquarters and gave the hug its caption. "In my dream, it was him down the runway," he said in the interview, which Complex reported on June 28, 2018.

He went further in the same conversation. "Kanye was the guy when it was completely unpopular that said, 'I am not to be typecast into a box,'" Abloh said, and recalled West telling him in their early years "We're going to Fashion Week," a place Abloh described as one "where we can't get in." Abloh's summary of the debut was "That dream is his just as much as it's mine."

That is the status signal underneath the tears. Louis Vuitton had named Abloh men's artistic director in March 2018, the first person of African descent to lead the house's menswear, and he spent the British Vogue interview crediting the man who had interned beside him at Fendi nine years earlier.

Nine Years From the Fendi Internship to Miami Marine Stadium

Abloh died in Chicago on November 28, 2021, at 41, of cardiac angiosarcoma, a cancer diagnosed in 2019 that he kept private. Louis Vuitton staged his final collection, Spring Summer 2022, as Virgil Was Here on November 30, 2021 on a platform outside Miami Marine Stadium, with Kid Cudi again walking and West and Pharrell Williams among the guests, per Revolt and CNN.

The chair then sat empty for fourteen months. Louis Vuitton named Pharrell Williams men's creative director on February 14, 2023, the second Black American to run a European luxury house, and he holds the job today.

So the answer to who designs Louis Vuitton men's now runs straight through the Palais Royal hug. The man crying in the front row on June 21, 2018 was in Miami on November 30, 2021, and so was the man who took Abloh's chair on February 14, 2023.