Japanese streetwear icons were absorbed into European luxury houses

Evidence

At the helm of Louis Vuitton, Abloh’s star continued to rise. He designed Hailey Baldwin’s wedding dress for her marriage to Justin Bieber and pulled even more streetwear into the luxury fold. In 2020, Abloh collaborated on a capsule collection with his hero, A Bathing Ape founder Nigo. “Me being at Louis Vuitton is directly attributable to work Nigo’s done in the past,” explained Abloh. … A$AP Rocky agreed, saying, “Nigo is just as important and significant to hip-hop as Pharrell, or Slick Rick, or Kanye.” It felt like a logical step in 2021 for LVMH to appoint Nigo the artistic director of Kenzo, formalizing his place in the luxury world. — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 766

Categorization

• XREF: Traces the omnivore monoculture mechanism — subculture absorbed into luxury — already charted for Supreme and Nike in earlier chapters; also echoes the death-of-the-sellout dynamic from the book’s core thesis.