The Brooklyn Museum Offers Exclusive “Virgil Abloh: Figures of Speech” Inspired Collection

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| LAST UPDATE 09/22/2022

By Zuzanna Krause
Virgil Abloh Figures Of Speech
Pierre Suu via Getty Images

The Brooklyn Museum has just added new exclusive merch for its "Figures of Speech" retrospective exhibit, which began earlier this summer, honoring the life of the late visionary Virgil Abloh. The exhibition is active until the end of January 2023 for audiences around the world to go and appreciate and celebrate the life of Virgil and all that he did for the fashion industry and beyond.

Virgil Abloh: "Figures of Speech" was developed by the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago as the first museum to display the artist's years and years of work with never before seen pieces. Abloh became a landmark for how we understand fashion, music, design, and art in contemporary culture and for how we see these disciplines intersect and connect in the world. The retrospective exhibit explores Abloh's "communicative power of design" and displays various collaborations with artist Takashi Murakami, Kanye West, Louis Vuitton, and more. The exhibition description reads: "His use of language and quotation marks turns his designs and the people who engage with them into literal figures of speech. The artist uses the Black gaze to dismantle the traditionally white-crafted structures at work in fashion, design, architecture, and art, reconstructing new work through the lens of the Black cultural experience."

Takashi Murakami Virgil Abloh
 Victor Boyko via Getty Images
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Upon its opening, the Brooklyn Museum released official merchandise for the exhibition, which included Champion pullover hoodies, trucker hats, canvas toes, and more, which were all initially conceptualized by Abloh himself two years prior to his death. The museum's collection also includes some home pieces, from a sticker set, coffee mugs, and a "Figure of Speech" catalog book, which was first created for the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art.

With the automatic success of the exhibit, Brooklyn Museum has added an exclusive range of new pieces available for audiences to purchase. The collection includes limited edition apparel, accessories, and even a tabletop flip clock representing the collection's inspiration reminding "us of the evolution occurring every moment." The rest of the range includes leather handbags, pullover hoodies, vintage-like tees, Italian-made garments with checkered patterns, and more, all available through the museum's online store and Off-White flagships. So if you haven't already, make sure to catch the exhibit before it's over and while you're there, check out that flip clock!

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