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| Beyond What Eyes Can See |
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Scott remembers Virgil Abloh, the iconic Creative who passed away yesterday after a long, secret battle with cancer. He was 41.
There are certainly many terms that have been bestowed upon Virgil Abloh over the course of his lifetime, and I’m sure that you’ll see many such words bestowed upon him through the countless obituaries that will follow. One word you may not see as much, but that I find the most fitting when it comes to Abloh, is polymath. A polymath, as the Oxford dictionary puts it, is a person who knows a lot about many different subjects. The definition, though a little light on meaning, is perfectly fitting for someone who trained as an architect, was renowned for his fashion acumen and designs, moved the masses as a designer and broke boundaries for countless people as a Creative. Virgil Abloh, by all accounts, was unlike any other that came before him.
Abloh leaves us after a two-year battle with cancer. Like the late great actor Chadwick Boseman before him, both men never let disease diminish their limelight until their very last breath. There is an incredible level of dignity and grace as to how Abloh battled through it all, continuing his ongoing legacy as the head of menswear at Louis Vuitton, as a businessman with OFF-WHITE, and as a creative force in all fields he touched. To battle cancer while juggling as many projects as he had takes someone truly special, along with a team that can support him through the endeavors. Abloh's strength was undeniably his ability to utilize product as messaging.
As many will point out, Virgil Abloh was never supposed to make it this far into the boy’s club that is luxury fashion. Given his unusual technical background and the pervasively discriminatory nature of fashion, Abloh’s rise and stardom brought me a lot of joy as someone who aspires to be a polymath. He showed that if you put in the work, you too could lead one of the greatest name brands of all time and infuse a style that truly broke from tradition, yet was commercially viable. Abloh was a beacon for more people than he could possibly fathom. A kid from Chicago who geeked out on skate culture became the catalyst to bring together endless movements at once. Abloh showed that you could be multi-dimensional and still be a cut above the rest: this is a gift for the few, and he pushed his craft until the very end.
Rest well, Virgil. Thank you for leaving a legacy that other creatives can aspire to move forward. The torch lights up beyond what eyes can see.
- Scott
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The Bulletin
Hear and read the latest from MAEKAN and the community. |
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Making It Up 192: Better sleep and supply chain issues
Charis and Eugene talk about the allure of better sleep fueling an industry of sleep-related products. They also discuss how a rise in online shopping in combination with pandemic factors has lead to supply chain issues.
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| For Your A-10-tion |
The best links from across the Internet.
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1. 😔 Virgil Abloh Passes Away At 41
Founder of Off-White founder and men's artistic director for Louis Vuitton, Abloh is credited as a multidisciplinary genius who brought streetwear culture and aesthetics to the highest echelons of fashion. He passed away on November 28 from cardiac angiosarcoma, a rare and aggressive form of cancer he had battled since 2019.
2. 🤖 NVIDIA's GauGAN2 AI Generates "Photos" From Text
GauGAN2 is the successor to GauGAN, the AI program NVIDIA first released in 2019 that uses GANs (generative adversarial networks) to turn doodles into photoreal drawings, which would eventually be used to create the NVIDIA Canvas app. GauGAN2 allows users to type in simple text descriptions such as "beach at sunset" to generate photorealistic renders that can then be selectively altered based on preference.
3. 💋 Yassification: The Meme-ification Trend And Its Commentary On Beauty
The trend involves taking images of figures from throughout history and culture and transforming them using photo editing apps to apply extreme makeup. While some connect the trend back to the emphasis on fun, expressiveness and humor in the vein of RuPaul's Drag Race, Alex Peters believes there's another layer of meaning that hints at our collective subversion of beauty standards:
"The huge popularity of the yassification trend, however, does point to there being something more behind the meme than just absurd humour and vapid emptiness. As last year made clear, memes often act as a mirror to the times, reflecting our collective mood back to us. Through memes we process larger circumstances and cultural trends and pressures. And right now, it seems we are processing and expressing a general fatigue for our overly filtered and photoshopped online culture."
4. 📱 The Role Of Content In A Superapp
Lillian Li shares insights of how content plays into the success of a superapp in terms of acquiring, segmenting, monetizing and retaining users. Specifically, she looks at how content completes the customer journey puzzle in XiaoHongShu (China's Instagram equivalent) and retail platform Taobao while referencing Eugene Wei's status-as-a-service framework:
"The golden triangle of utility, social capital and entertainment provide a potent mix. People come for the tools, stay for the social capital, which is stabilised, obscured and legitimised by the entertainment on the platform."
5. 🎧 Selling Music Royalties Directly To Fans Could Be The Industry's Future
Platformer's Casey Newton looks at how blockchain technology could revolutionize the music industry (at least for some artists) using insights from artist and producer Justin Blau who founded Royal, and Fred Ehrsam, who sits on Royal's board and is a co-founder of crypto VC firm Paradigm.
"The idea is to take the traditional record industry model, in which the label might keep 80 percent of all future royalties, and flip it to one where the artist keeps 80 percent. (Royal takes a cut of primary sales that is under 10 percent, the company said, as well as a cut of secondary sales.) This summer, Blau tested the platform by giving away 333 NFTs representing half the streaming ownership in his new single. Those songs have now generated more than $600,000 in sales and are worth more than $6 million."
6. 🥾 Gorpcore According To Actual Hikers
As you might expect, real hikers and outdoorsy people have a mix of resentment and encouragement with regards to the popularization of the gear and the brands, pointing to the rise in prices and outsiders but also understanding the comfort afforded by high-quality items. Also, this non-hiker finally learned today that GORP is named for the essential trail snack "good old raisins and peanuts."
7. 🎬 Tom Ford's Opinion on the House Of Gucci
As both a fashion icon who worked at Gucci and someone who's directed two films in the past, Ford criticized the Ridley Scott-directed film that explores the rise and fall of the Gucci family. In particular, he takes issue with the involvement of the star-studded cast, which he feels was inflated at the cost of the script and its accuracy. Ford is quoted as saying:
“I was deeply sad for several days after watching ‘House of Gucci,’ a reaction that I think only those of us who knew the players and the play will feel. It was hard for me to see the humor and camp in something that was so bloody. In real life, none of it was camp. It was at times absurd, but ultimately it was tragic."
8. 🏃♂️ Peloton and the Issue With Connected At-Home Fitness
With Pelton's tumultuous growth and decline during and after the major events of the 2020 pandemic, fitness companies looking to repeat the "connected fitness" pioneer's formula might carry the same risks that come with the strategy of locking consumers into using a proprietary software-`hardware connection. As Victoria Song writes:
"Linking hardware and software like this is meant to lock customers into one fitness ecosystem to the exclusion of all others. While most let you integrate your workout data with Strava, the hardware generally only lets you do one thing: stream one company’s workouts. You can’t download different entertainment apps or stream other workouts on a Peloton Bike unless you’re willing to jailbreak it and void the warranty. The SoulCycle Bike is the rare exception that includes Netflix and Disney Plus on top of its own content. The only problem is the Netflix and Disney Plus apps are locked behind the Equinox Plus paywall. You end up paying a premium for a piece of equipment that can only do one thing."
9. 📉 Pretty Little Thing, Fast Fashion, and Its "Up To 100% Off" Offer
As part of its Black Friday sale, Pretty Little Thing (PLT) delighted shoppers with certain items going for free. However, Daniel Rogers writes, if it's too good to be true, it most definitely is when consumer benefit is measured in relation to the cost to the manufacturer and its workers.
"When the price of clothing is so low, it often comes from a cycle of exploitation, where the human cost of making the garment is just as unfathomable. Simply put, it’s impossible to sell something for £0.00 and pay factory workers anything which remotely resembles a fair wage. The two concepts are mutually exclusive."
10. 📓 Notion's Battle With Loop, the Free Microsoft Doppelganger
While Loop is more positioned to link with existing Microsoft products, the visual resemblance to Notion is uncanny. What's troubling is that as Evan Armstrong of Napkin Math points out, Microsoft has a history of copying technologies like web browser Netscape and chat app Slack and then using the company's superior resources and size to push out its competitors. He also offers some ways that Notion could potentially with this David vs. Goliath battle.
Fiber artist Rima Day's book sculptures
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