Late Off-White™ founder Virgil Abloh was a creative director, a fashion designer, and an architect. But prior to mastering those disciplines he was a skateboarder. That activity influenced his later endeavors, imbuing them with a skater’s eye for detail, style, and community.
It’s fitting then that Abloh’s final design for Off-White™ is a skate shoe that melds high fashion materials and construction with functional details and personal touches. The VULC 779, designed by Abloh before his passing in 2021, gets its name from the area code for the designer’s childhood hometown of Rockford, Illinois, and pays homage to skateboarding’s global community.
With a puffy foam tongue, striking silhouette, ghillie lace loops, a rubberized toe cap and ollie pad, and a namesake vulcanized sole, the VULC 779 is a working skate shoe that also suits fashion’s current baggy pants trend.
To showcase the VULC 779’s US debut, Off-White™ shot a campaign featuring skaters Jessyka Bailey, Gabriel Fortunato, Adrianne Sloboh, Davey Sales, Yuri Facchini, and Marie De Courcy sessioning California streets and a schoolyard.
For the shoe’s New York launch this month, the label also tapped curator Alex Sossah to helm 779EXPO, a group art show at its EMP TY space on Mercer street.
779EXPO houses work from from global skate artists, including:
- Nigerian artist and designer Olaolu Slawn
- London artist Soldierboyfriend
- London illustrator Jake Bisley
- Slovenian painter Evgen Čopi Gorišek
- Paris videographer Hugo Campan
- London photographer Fin Flint
- New York street photographer Nolan Zangas
- Milan skate photographer Nicoló Giovannoni
Framed photos, Polaroids, and limited edition skateboards from the artists can all be purchased at the art show.
779EXPO is also a retail pop up. Attendees will be able to buy an Off-White™ x Motherlan T-shirt and an Off-White™ x Star Team T-shirt, as well as Off-White™’s own “OW779” Graffiti Logo T-shirt, which is limited to 100 pieces. Each shirt is exclusive to 779EXPO.
779EXPO is open from September 13-15, 2024, at Off-White™ EMP TY, 51 Mercer St, New York, from 11am to 7pm.
The VULC 779 will be available on www.off—white.com and at Off-White™ stores and select retailers worldwide this month.
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