Get An Exclusive Behind-The-Scenes Look At the Making Of Virgil Abloh’s First Three Louis Vuitton Collections

When Virgil Abloh gave a lecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design in 2017, the theme was “cheat codes”—a term he has used liberally throughout his career to describe the nature of his work. Whether he’s designing a pair of Nikes, or creative-directing a Playboi Carti album, or putting together his own retrospective for the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, his goal is inherently inclusive, to provide kids with hacks they can use to subvert the gatekeepers of art, fashion, and design. (Abloh even said his aim for the MCA exhibition was to produce five new Virgils.)

So when Cam Hicks, the 28-year-old photographer, stylist, and creative director, wanted to take photos for Louis Vuitton as Abloh worked on his debut collection for the French house, he took Abloh’s advice to heart... and sent him a WhatsApp asking for a job. The ensuing conversation opens a pivotal section in Hicks’s debut photo book, For The Porch, which documents Hicks’s four-year journey from underground fashion photographer to (spoiler alert—he got the gig!) personal shooter for Virgil Abloh at Louis Vuitton.

“At the time leading up to Virgil’s first show at Louis Vuitton, I had been working with Off-White for about six months,” Hicks recalls of the moment he decided to shoot his proverbial shot. “I was in a taco shop with one of my friends and he was just like, ‘You should go out there and ask for the things that you want. If you want to photograph high fashion and actually be a part of something great, then you should hit Virgil up and ask.’ And I was like, ‘True. Okay.’ The worst thing that could happen is I'm still going to be in this taco shop in Bushwick.”

Abloh told Hicks to drop by the office to “catch a vibe,” so Hicks bought a ticket to Paris and showed up at the Vuitton offices. “Virgil looked at me and he was like, ‘So what do you want to do? Use this as your playground. You can really do whatever you want.’”

Given carte blanche, Hicks went on to document in intimate detail the behind-the-scenes preparations—and aftermath—of Abloh’s historic debut Louis Vuitton collection. Abloh liked the work so much he hired him to shoot the rest of his shows, too. Below is an exclusive first look at some of Hicks’s never-before seen photos of the making of Abloh’s first three Louis Vuitton collections from For The Porch, which is is dropping online at Dover Street Market New York on May 5, and at Paradigm Publishing on May 6.

“The big thing for me,” Hicks says, “was just the fact that Virgil kicked down such a big door that nobody like him had done before. And as soon as he did it, he just left it open. He was just like, ‘I'll give the opportunity to you, too.’ I was literally eating tacos one day and now I'm in Virgil's office in Paris the next. It's wild to think about.”

Untitled / Stephen Aguila / April 24, 2020 4:09 PM

Originally Appeared on GQ