Designer Abloh fashions response to critics of his comments on crisis

Fashion designer Virgil Abloh was flooded with disdain after lambasting the looting and vandalizing element of people who were protesting last week’s killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer. He also was lambasted for what looked like a measly $50 donation to bail out those arrested.

But on Monday, the Louis Vuitton creative director and inventor of street wear brand Off-White had an explanation and an apology ready for its Instagram closeup.

He had written comments on Instagram over the weekend blasting those who had trashed and looted stores owned and founded by his friends.

“Our own communities, our own shops,” he captioned a photo of the Fat Tiger workshop in Chicago, as noted in Newsweek. “This shop was built with blood sweat and tears.”

He posted numerous comments vilifying the looting and vandalism and the damage, but then came the tipping point.

Abloh posted a screenshot of a $50 donation he had made to Fempower Community Bond Fund in Miami, organized to help bail protesters out of jail – an amount that would not even pay for a single Off-White sock, as numerous commenters pointed out.

Fellow celebs have donated tens of thousands. Chrissy Teigen, for instance,

forked over $200,000.

And Abloh’s lashing out, as The Root noted, stood in stark contrast to, say, designer Marc Jacobs, who posted, “Property can be replaced, human lives cannot.”

Twitter was merciless, as Complex reported. That’s also where he began his penance.

Monday dawned, and Abloh (inset) was humbled and contrite, apologizing for his choice of words and clarifying that the $50 was not his sole donation, it was just the one he publicized as part of a matching initiative with his friends. In reality, he said, he had donated $20,500 to various protestrelated causes, and planned to do more.

“I apologize that my comments yesterday appeared as if my main concerns are anything other than full solidarity with the movements against police violence, racism and inequality,”

he wrote in an Instagram post. “I want to update all systems that don’t address our current needs. It has been my personal MO in every realm I touch.” He also apologized for his comments about the looted stores, for sounding as if “my concern for those stores outweighed my concern for our right to protest injustice and express our anger and age in this moment.” Complicating matters, “I also joined a social media chain of friends who were matching $50 donations,” he said. “I apologize that appeared to some as if that was my only donation to these important causes.”

Finally, he made sure to delineate the difference between brick-and-mortar buildings that can be replaced, and the people who can’t.

“Black lives matter,” he said. “In this moment, those other things don’t.”