Virgil Abloh Unveils the First Off-White Home Collection

This was pretty much inevitable. Virgil Abloh, who has a seemingly endless number of plates spinning on an endless number of sticks, has given us our first look at his premiere offering of home goods for his massively popular Off-White brand. Called—of course—Off-White Home, it includes an assortment of ceramic table and bath objects, towels, sheets, and more. It is neither a surprise that much of it features Off-White’s instantly recognizable arrow branding, nor is it a shocker that there’s a simple, cushy elegance to much of it. Abloh may be more-or-less new to the home goods game, but he and his team have proven themselves to be quick studies in many fields.

Then again, this is not Abloh’s first venture into objects for the home. As recently as this summer, Vitra unveiled a series of pieces—a chair, a lamp, a brick, and more—that saw Abloh playing with some of the brand’s more classic designs. It is, however, the first-ever such offering from his core Off-White label. This comes on top of his various brick-and-mortar popups for Louis Vuitton and associated capsule collections, continued leadership of the French brand’s menswear line, his exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, the creation of this light-up digital turntable, and more. All and all, it’s been a busy season for the 38-year-old designer.

If he’s being pulled in too many directions at once, it’s hard to see it in Off-White Home. While design experts may find the wares here somewhat familiar or, at worst, derivative, they do evince a smart simplicity and a certain elegance. Yes, there is a bit of the in-your-face branding that’s most familiar to the brand’s streetwear in the towels, blanket, and robe, but it’s all within the bounds of taste and applied to pieces that are themselves simplistic. The bedding, embroidered with the same arrow logo, could come from almost any European luxury brand collection. The ceramics set, which uses only the most basic forms, is the most attractive offering here, a play between the most familiar of shapes and careful use of Delft-Blue touches. Naturally, everything here is ivory or off-white in color.

As said, it’s a solid first offering and, with price points ranging from $95 to $635, it’s a smart play for a brand that is constantly reaching out to other markets and asking its customers to grow up with it. It will come to the brand’s web-store and EMPTY Gallery September 1, 2019, when it will no doubt sell out quickly.