Louis Vuitton @louisvuitton Autumn Winter 2021 Collection by Virgil Abloh during Paris Fashion Wek on January, 21st. 2021
E B O N I C S. It was through the film titled “Peculiar Contrast, Perfect Light,” that Louis Vuitton’s Creative Director Virgil Abloh showed his Fall/Winter 2021 collection, being something greater than just the presentation of a collection. Inspired by African-American novelist James Baldwin’s ‘A Stranger in the Village’ about his experiences in Leukerbad, Switzerland, the collection entitled ”E B O N IC S”, a term known as American Vernacular English which is a form of English spoken by some African Americans, provided us with an in-depth socio-cultural perspective.
Each designer has engaged in a dialogue with the audience, and this season has been heightened by social and health events that have raised the questioning of many precepts; some have dealt with the impacts of confinement on our lives. The show was described by the brand as ”A performance expressed in poetry, dance, and music, featuring an all-star cast”. Starring Saul Williams, Kai-Isaiah Jamal, and Yasiin Bey (aka Mos Def) the film invites us to question the archetypes and presumptions we automatically assigned to each person based on their cultural, sexual, ethnic background. The show notes state he following:
”Defining the ‘normal’ characters of society, Virgil Abloh investigates the presumptions we make about people based on the way they dress: their cultural background, gender and sexuality. The collection strives to illuminate and neutralise the prejudice we create around people by keeping the dress codes related to certain archetypes, but changing the human values we associate with them.”’
Focusing on the pieces of the collection, it featured classic pieces with a modern touch along some other more upcycled ones, like the jacket that showed in third dimension the city of Chicago and Paris, .
Although the event could not be attended physically, the special invitations to the artists were not absent, being one of the guest artists BTS and yes, when we refer to special invitations is literally. As anticipated in the first posts published by the brand hours before the show, the plane was going to be a special element in the collection, giving a new shape to the iconic monogram bag, along with its use on some in the garments (e.g. buttons, sweaters). Regarding the invitations sent to the artists, they were accompanied by an airplane to be assembled with the brand’s iconic pattern on the wings.
