Robin Givhan Make It Ours

Annotation

In the spring of 2018, Louis Vuitton sent shockwaves around the fashion industry. They appointed Virgil Abloh, a designer with no formal training, to be the head of menswear and the first Black artistic director in the brand's 164-year history - a cultural moment that would upend a century's worth of ideas about luxury and taste. Using one man's remarkable path to the top of the luxury establishment, Make It Ours uncovers the larger story of how the cloistered, exclusive fashion world faced a revolution from below, dressed in puffer jackets and sneakers. From the designers emboldened to storm the gates, to the simple T-shirt coming to hold as much cultural power as an haute couture gown, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Robin Givhan chronicles how Abloh propelled an entire industry forward. With unparalleled access to Abloh's family, friends, collaborators, and contemporaries like Ozwald Boateng and Abloh's mercurial but critical employer and mentor Kanye West, Givhan weaves a spellbinding biography of a singular creative force and a powerful meditation on fashion and race, taste and exclusivity, genius and luxury.