Written by By Casey Lartigue, CNN
Kanye West has shared a tribute to the designer and stylist Virgil Abloh in the form of a cover of Adele’s 2014 hit “Easy on Me.”
“If you asked me where I see my path in five years, I will say to you we will always be like this,” wrote West, who works with Abloh’s Off-White.
“We will always believe in the greatness of ourselves. And, wherever we go, we will fight to be better than ever before. Stay in the light Virgil, stay creative, keep pushing, keep those trends coming… those trophies are closer than you think.”
West shared the image on his Twitter account on Sunday, captioning it “Onward and upward.”
A video posted by Kanye West (@kanyewest) on Jun 3, 2019 at 12:13pm PDT
Abloh, a former photographer, has long designed and styled campaigns for brands including Louis Vuitton, Pharrell Williams’ House of Dereon and Chrome Hearts. He launched his men’s and women’s collections for Off-White in 2016.
“Soft spot for @kyliejenner and you always show amazing fashion choices,” wrote West, referring to the Kardashian family and Abloh’s personal fashion muse. “I definitely have some behind the scenes story time with a Spice Girls t-shirt and a needle and thread.”
The pair were first linked in 2016 when both appeared in a Nike x Off-White video . Since then, the two have collaborated on campaigns, pop songs, streetwear collections and collaborative projects.
Kanye West is a senior designer at Louis Vuitton. Credit: Louis Vuitton
Abloh was part of the design team that redesigned Louis Vuitton’s logo in 2009, and worked on the brand’s 2015 Paris Fashion Week collection. He also appeared in a headline-grabbing video shoot in July 2018 for Louis Vuitton’s men’s fall/winter 2018 ready-to-wear collection, designed by himself and designer Virgil Gabrion — which included cameos from Christian Bale, Idris Elba and Pharrell Williams.
Their collaboration — which will continue in the brand’s 2019 men’s season — was commissioned by Nicolas Ghesquiere, the brand’s artistic director, who later said of his collaborators, “It means taking Kanye’s creativity and putting it in [French poet Henri] Charriere’s line, [in] Jacques-Louis David’s aesthetic, and in the V.F.W. [Virgil Abloh’s] personal aesthetic…It’s a nice combination.”