WORDS BY KENYA HUNT

‘The thing people have to understand is that streetwear lives and dies,’ says Off-White Creative Director Virgil Abloh. ‘It flares up and then it goes away because streetwear is so of its time.’

We’re discussing how clothing rooted in skate and hip-hop culture – the puffer coats, the hoodies, the oversized logos and the baggy silhouettes – has risen from the outskirts of fashion to the luxury big leagues.

There’s a streetwear explosion happening in fashion right now. When was the last time you saw so many puffer jackets on a Balenciaga runway? Or so many logo hoodies

(that politically fraught linchpin of teenage boys’ wardrobes) ruling the womenswear floors of Topshop, Zara and the like? And while this new casual moment is most often credited to Vêtements designer and Balenciaga Creative Director Demna Gvasalia – the man behind those aforementioned puffer jackets – Abloh, who last year was the only American finalist for the LVMH prize, is one of a handful of emerging designers driving it.

The 35-year-old is developing a name for himself as the man behind the buzzy womenswear label, Off-White, but is probably best known for his work as Kanye West’s Creative Director for the past 14 years. Abloh has been at the centre of the streetwear movement’s various waves and stages since the Nineties and during a phone call he talks me through it all in a manner that is part cultural critic,