Virgil Abloh x NIGO Present LV²

Louis Vuitton Men’s artistic director Virgil Abloh initially teased his upcoming collaboration with Japanese streetwear legend NIGO back in December 2019. The official campaign imagery for the Louis Vuitton NIGO collaboration had the internet buzzing with anticipation by the end of May 2020. The first part of the collection dropped in Japan on June 17th, 2020, and a worldwide release followed on June 26, 2020. You can shop the iconic apparel, bags, and accessories from the sold-out Louis Vuitton NIGO collaboration now on StockX.

Louis Vuitton has a history of collaborating with Japanese artists and fashion legends, bringing collectors some of the most important pieces in handbag history, from Takashi Murakami to Yayoi Kusama and Hiroshi Fujiwara. It only makes sense that men’s artistic director Virgil Abloh tapped NIGO for his very first collaboration at the helm of Louis Vuitton. In an interview with Vogue’s Nicole Phelps, Abloh is quoted as saying, “Me being at Louis Vuitton is directly attributable to work Nigo’s done in the past. A collab project with him—it puts his work in the right context. He inspired me to do what I do.”

NIGO is best known in the fashion world as the creator of legendary streetwear brand A Bathing Ape (BAPE). A graduate of the Bunka Fashion College in Tokyo, NIGO opened his first store NOWHERE in 1993 with Jun Takahashi of Undercover. That same year, he started his first brand “A Bathing Ape in Lukewarm Water.” The colorful and punchy graphics designed in collaboration with lead designer SK8THING dropped weekly and eventually grabbed the attention of American hip hop artists like Pharrell and Kanye West. BAPE then traveled to the United States, becoming a global hype brand driven by scarcity and exclusivity. NIGO’s relationship with Pharell Williams would later evolve into the creation of brands Billionaire Boys Club and Ice Cream. We see drip references in the Louis Vuitton NIGO collaboration that calls back to the Ice Cream brand. In 2011, NIGO sold 90% of BAPE and stayed on as creative director until he officially left in 2013. 

image via Dazed

Today NIGO’s resume is endless; he currently operates a conglomerate of businesses under NIGOLD, one of which includes the brand Human Made, which launched in 2010. Human Made reworks vintage fabrics and wears and is very different from BAPE, far more subdued drawing from the 1950s Americana look. The brand’s slogan, “Gears For Futuristic Teenagers” references NIGO’s desire to remain a teenager forever. Human Made has a few frequently used graphics such as the polar bear and mallard duck we see repurposed in the LV² Collection. 

image via Tatler Malaysia

Both Virgil and NIGO have evolved far beyond graphics on t-shirts and we see this at play in the Louis Vuitton NIGO collaboration. This collection serves as proof that Virgil and NIGO have graduated from streetwear to Luxury Fashion and it’s purposefully designed as a departure from what we would have expected from these two. This collection focuses on tailoring and brings in nods from both the codes of Louis Vuitton as well as the codes of NIGO and Human Made. NIGO is credited with naming the collaboration LV². Abloh told Vogue, “We were from outside having an opinion and just styling it. Now we’re inside designing it and styling it.” Check out a few of our favorite pieces from the iconic Louis Vuitton NIGO collaboration below.