The ‘Virgil Abloh Effect’ theory: A cultural convergence of collective Black consciousness in streetwear and hip-hop

Virgil Abloh was a contemporary creative phenomenon who disrupted conventional elite fashion structures (high culture) by using ‘streetwear’ (low culture) to expand Black cultural legitimacy. Importantly, Abloh’s work can be understood as decolonizing and supporting the social justice efforts of the early twenty-first century, as seen with American/global social movements LGBTQIA+, #MeToo and Black Lives Matter. The aim of this article is to investigate hip-hop and Blackness using fashion as a vehicle for debate to expand concepts of aesthetics (subjective and objective perception), quality/taste (judgement) and hierarchy (power). This article coins the ‘Virgil Abloh Effect’ theory – defined as a method or practice that describes how Abloh was able to achieve the destabilization of the luxury system, whereby he engaged the use of transmedia communication and transcreative practice to establish new mainstream aesthetic and cultural norms at the nexus of fashion, art and music.