Sparking this edition of IMO is the latest hire of menswear designer from Louis Vuitton is Virgil Abloh.
The day it was announced that Virgil Abloh would replace Kim jones as the designer for LV’s menswear edition, I stated that I was 50/50 on it. Virgil’s brand OFF-WHTIE is quite new to the industry and certainly Virgil has only been in the industry as a designer for a few years, which means he has not completely has the reportoire to be in line in LV.
In the same time frame, Kim Jones was hire by Dior to be the artistic director for Dior Homme mens’ division. A lot of movements in the industry but the same time this is normal.
Now recently, Kim Jones has hired Yoon Anh (Ambush’s co-founder) to be the Jewelry Designer for Dior Homme. Yoon Anh is not famous for her designs but she is more famous as the co-founder of AMBUSH, which is a street-wear brand mostly known in Asia.
These types of hire is not new in the industry but it has been happening as of late, which begs the questions, Are the brands only to hire for hype and not for quality?
It is a complex question that leads to multiple answers and not one answers can solve the question completely. In any industry, to be hired, it’s all about the who you know and what you know. Sad but true.
With the latest hires, the biggest names in the industry are influenced by up and comings names, to which these names suddenly becomes a candidate for open positions. Not only that, many of the employees within the company may or may not be in considerations, which is quite sad.
Does this mean Dior Homme and Louis Vuitton made a bad decision with their hires? Only time will tell as we have not seen these new hires in their progression and we have not seen their collection. Sine these are big names, this will only become a trend as we get to see more names with little to no designer experience have an artistic position.
Luxury brand will only have their quality in mind but what about creativity, will it also match the quality of the brand’s expectation? Every design will always have its compromise, surely these brands know that quality cannot be compromise.