As seen on Unboxed Issue 60. The Unboxed newsletter covers the most important stories of the week across sneakers, sports, and fashion straight to your inbox on Mondays.
Like everyone else, I’m still trying to process the loss of the great Virgil Abloh. A fan since the early DONDA and Pyrex Vision days, I thought I had a decent grasp on his influence and the way he inspired people, but I’ve been blown away by the stories, conversations, and photos shared across the internet. From fashion to sports to music, there wasn’t a culture he didn’t contribute to. From the biggest celebrities and brands in the world to everyday sneakerheads and aspiring creatives, everyone seems to have a Virgil story.
For much of my career, I’ve kept the behind-the-scenes work and privileges private for a variety of reasons, but if Virgil taught us anything, it’s to share our experiences, knowledge, and ideas with the world unapologetically. I started at Jordan Brand in May 2017, a year that would later be defined as the official birth of the collab era, thanks largely to his groundbreaking “The Ten” collection with Nike. I can still remember holding promo pairs of the “Chicago” Off-White x Air Jordan 1 in the office. I immediately texted my friend Rich MaZe Lopez and said the following over the course of a few ecstatic texts: “I hope I never lose this feeling about sneakers lol. Feeling is exact same as when I was a kid. Shit hasn’t faded.” Virgil understood how powerful a shoe can be to one’s confidence, happiness and drive because he felt that way about sneakers, too.
I had the honor of interviewing him about the first colorway of his Air Jordan V collaboration and I’ll never forget that conversation in Chicago. My nerves about talking to one of the most important creatives of our lifetime were eased when the conversation turned to one I’ve had thousands of times— two sneakerheads geeking our about Air Jordans. The way he described Air Jordans as a metaphor for a superhero cape perfectly summed up how I think about sneakers. Reflecting on this and the other opportunities I had to be in his presence feels like for a few brief moments in time, I got to play pickup with the GOAT, or at least be on the bench for it. I’ll never forget those moments and am thankful to have lived during the same era of history as him. One of my favorite quotes from the story was him saying “MJ was a man who became a superhero.”
Virgil did, too.
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