Today, still in Illinois but no longer pinching offcuts from construction sites, Abloh is integrating that teenage passion for skate into his broader array of activities. Examples include his signing of the skater Lucien Clarke to endorse a Louis Vuitton skate shoe and running ads for it in Thrasher, promoting skaters he admires through Off-White and his own prodigious Instagram output, and partnering with the NGO Surf Ghana and skate crew Skate Nation to fund and construct a skatepark in Accra. As one cultural facet in his many-faceted design articulation, Abloh’s expressions of skate function to forward his broader agenda – to uplift, to enable, and to create the conditions of access for black people to social contexts and opportunities from which they have been historically excluded. Through his output at both Off-White and Louis Vuitton, Abloh will always be exposed to the skewed equivalence of those who maintain luxury fashion is intrinsically incompatible with skate culture, but he chooses not to be influenced by the authenticity vigilantes – instead he’s working to further the genuine equivalence between skateboarding and personal achievement as part of his wider practice. When we got together for a skate-centric conversation, here’s how Abloh unpacked his moves.

So Virgil, you skated in the ’90s?
Yeah, and in the ’90s skating was evolving. It had always been something that was linked to California surf culture. But in the ’90s it was fusing with hip-hop through different skate scenes on the East Coast. So, you know, as a teenager in America at the time skating was what you did, that was how you bonded with your friends and did something creative. Communities were created. So skating was something that was very integral to my teenage years, skating with this crew of kids in my city. And we were watching skate videos, buying skate magazines... We were at our local skate park, it was called Rotation Station. We were in the moment of the culture. You skated too, so you get it.

And now you’re expressing skate in your work, alongside other forms of culture. We recently discussed jazz, and even though jazz has never been a big genre in skate, I’ve always thought there are parallels between the two. Both are art forms of American origin, and both involve rapid leaps of mental and physical improvisation. 
I think there’s some amazing synergies between forms like jazz or figure skating and skateboarding – done by different people and done in a different landscape, but equally poetic. Once you have fused any sort of art form with black culture, you get a compelling combination. So when you talk about skating and jazz music, you know, thinking about Stevie Williams and Miles Davis I start to see similarities in their approach. Yeah, especially with regard to the overall canon.

They share a perspective that allows them to see potential and possibilities that were otherwise unseen?
Exactly.

The other night I saw you drop into an Instagram Live from Surf Ghana when they were out skating in Kumasi...
Yeah, that was all in the moment. Not too pre planned! You can probably see in my work that I’m a bit resistant to leave my formative teenage years behind, you know! I just do it in an adult way. Skateboarding is very critical. It’s like you’re in, or you’re out: there’s that very purist objective, in just the same way there is in fashion, or high art or high society. But I operate by my own rules, in my own logic, and I’m not fearful. When it comes to skating, well, I have an authentic upbringing in it. And I’m focused on progression... You know, everything niche becomes pop culture that is valuable. And so for me, you know, finding this community that needs support, skateboarders in Africa, and actually building infrastructure, while fusing between Lucien Clarke, who is an amazing Jamaican-born skater in London, in the same sweep of what’s happening in Accra and Lagos, the motherland kids who are fostering a scene and who I’m supporting there as well... We’re making a global community regardless of the elitism or sort of territorial-ness that can happen in subculture.

It’s an irony shared by both skateboarding and fashion that they both articulate freedom while remaining highly protective of their own exclusivity.
Exactly, the conundrum is there.

So you’re helping build a skatepark in Accra?
I’m helping in an organic way, project by project, year by year. The overall goal is to help to build a foundation there.

(Continues)

Opening image: a portrait of Virgil Abloh by Bogdan Plakov shot February 2019.

Read the full interview by Luke Leitch in the May issue of L'Uomo, on newsstands from April 13th