Kanye To The: Kanye West

Virgil Abloh delivers messages through his clothes, whether you pick up on them or not. With Blue Collar, the title of his latest men's collection, you immediately know what you're in for. Or do you? "I call it Blue Collar, but I actually want to make white-collar clothes," he said from a central Paris studio space, where regular collaborator Fabien Montique was preparing to shoot looks on models barely old enough to enter the workforce. Abloh, who likened being shortlisted for the LVMH Prize to losing his training wheels, expressed how he is committed to shifting Off-White from streetwear to menswear. Getting to that position while remaining an anti-establishment designer allows him the latitude to be impulsive at times, hence the last-minute decision to produce custom lapel pins that read "Working Class," the latter word dangling from the former like a forsaken charm.

There were larger, long-planned statements, too: Abloh sourced vintage Royal Mail uniforms and tacked panels of their blue oxford cloth to matte black tailored coats and shirts, often exactly where they would have appeared had the uniforms remained intact. For every demotion of formality, he promoted the ordinary, securing patches of paint-scuffed denim with monogrammed gold studs, for instance. The pants began as classic chinos yet underwent enough modifications—such as a dropped stitch giving way to an inverted pleat—that they broke through the realm of basic.

While some cool white-collar guy may end up purchasing the fantastically distressed leather bomber, Abloh didn't abandon the entry-level tees that once served as his foundation. Misaligned at the seams like a sartorial glitch, they feature a toll-free number for a fictional excavation service. Abloh purchased that number (1-855-OFF-WHTE, naturally). Dial it and you very well might find a message from him on the other end. Add the antics to the semantics and you have a very clever collection. However, a blue-collar theme must inevitably address construction. And Abloh understands this, even if he's still figuring out his stance on silhouette (occasionally, he overcompensated his slim-fit fatigue by exceeding flattering proportions). But then that's what building a brand—and a business—is all about.