Virgil Abloh, founder of luxury label Off-White and currently serves as the men’s artistic director of Louis Vuitton, died on Sunday after his more than 2 years battle with cancer.
The news has been announced on Abloh’s verified Instagram page, wherein it was mentioned that he passed away due to cardiac angiosarcoma, a rare and aggressive form of cancer, which he has been fighting since 2019.
“For over two years, Virgil valiantly battled a rare, aggressive form of cancer, cardiac angiosarcoma. He chose to endure his battle privately since his diagnosis in 2019, undergoing numerous challenging treatments, all while helming several significant institutions that span fashion, art, and culture.”
Following the news, the CEO of Louis Vuitton’s parent company LVMH, Bernard Arnault, released a statement through Louis Vuitton’s Twitter saying, “We are all shocked by this terrible news. Virgil was not only a genius designer and a visionary, he was also a man with a beautiful soul and great wisdom. The LVMH family joins me in this moment of great sorrow and we are all thinking of his loved ones on the passing of their husband, father, brother, son, and friend.”
The 41-year old Virgil Abloh also worked as Kanye West’s creative director before becoming Louis Vuitton’s first African American artistic director in 2018. He was born in Rockford, Illinois to immigrant Ghanaian parents, where he finished civil engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and took a master’s degree in architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology.