Sportswear International recently profiled Off-White™ designer Virgil Abloh for its digital pages. Within the interesting Q&A interview, Abloh discusses a range of topics, including street fashion, his philosophy on clothing, and using fashion as a vehicle for politics. While an excerpt appears below, Abloh’s sit-down with the German imprint can be read in its entirety over at sportswear-international.com.

How would you describe your approach toward fashion and the philosophy of your brand?

For me, Off-White is a creative studio, a recording system of time and culture, politics and art. I didn’t understand the fashion industry when I was younger, so I wanted to start a brand that is more democratic than other high fashion labels and only made for the young consumer. With Off-White, I want to reach the generation of the millennials. They have different needs and different cultural codes: They wear a T-shirt or a hoodie like a formal shirt or jacket. So my approach is marked by a conceptual and deconstructive attitude, questioning the conventions of the industry and refusing to take the traditions of tailoring and construction for granted.

“You are obviously in the wrong place.” At your first show in Paris, you quoted the film Pretty Women. Do you feel in the right place in fashion scene now? Or is being an outsider the new status symbol?

Yes, for sure! I wanted to implement my subculture in high fashion. This idea gave me the motivation to make the concept for Off-White. And to be honest: Three years ago, no one could tell, if street fashion would last or not.

How do you transform your philosophy into real clothes?

My question is: How can you wear a tailored jacket and think about it from a young person’s perspective? So what you see concerns fabrication, silhouette adjustment and new exaggerating looks: I try to get the classical shapes to a new direction. If you study one of my tailored jackets, a lot of my vocabulary is the idea of invisible zippers giving a garment more ways to be worn. People who are wearing my brand, kids from Prince and Mercer for example, are able to style themselves; they don’t want to follow a fashion dictate. If a jacket costs €1000 or €2000 it really should be different than the other jackets in your closet.