Off-White is a democratic brand.
In 2018, the collection created by the late Virgil Abloh offered a lower-priced option for fans who couldn’t afford the core collection’s luxury pieces. It was called Off-White For All and offered accessibly priced versions of the brand’s unisex hoodies and graphic T-shirts, targeted to Millennials.
And while For All has been retired, on Tuesday the company will introduce L/AB c/o Off-White, a reimagined version of the concept. While the name has changed, the mission remains the same.
“In a way, we’ve been warming up for this for the past 10 years by doing a lot of smaller things, but now we’re conveying this to a more robust expression of the brand,” said Cristiano Fagnani, Off-White’s chief executive officer.
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“Off-White has always been built as an open platform that aims to make itself available in terms of product to the widest possible range of consumers and communities,” he continued. “In the Off-White history, we’ve always been mixing the high and the low, trying to chase the craft while keeping ourselves anchored to consumer communities by doing collaborations or dropping capsules to make things more affordable.”
Fagnani said the goal from the beginning was to “make sure nobody is left behind.”
“The brand has a large audience and the intention to keep everyone close to us is not new, per se, but what’s new is the way we are now intentionally branding it, formatting it, creating an architecture that allows us to communicate, bring product to market and build an entire infrastructure for both the brand and the business.”
The key pillars for L/AB will be sport, music and fashion — similar to the ethos of the core Off-White collection — but centered more around community sports, open street tournaments and campus collection drops to appeal to a wide range of young customers.
To further cement its standing with that demographic, Off-White will be working for the relaunch with a range of creatives including musicians JT, Glaive and PZ; models Vivian Jenna Wilson, Julez Smith and Mazzy Joya, and content creator Jay Guapo.
This group of “wild and eclectic” people from around the world is featured in the launch campaign and will be collaborating with the brand on content in the future, Fagnani said. The campaign was shot in Berlin by Services Generaux.
In terms of product, Fagnani said the men’s and women’s merchandise is being viewed as a “brand extension of what you’re familiar with. Everything we do in our creative kitchen we trickle down to L/AB in a different shape and form from a consumer and community engagement standpoint. The goal is to make and offer this brand as a service to the consumer, and in that sense, we aim to have a very open dialogue and an open platform, creatively speaking, in terms of content and engagement and experiences. It’s going to be very democratic and more available than the Off-White line, which is sophisticated and less affordable.”
He said the company will “seed and engage with the youngest generation of consumers,” but the “sweet spot” for L/AB will be a 16-year-old or “everyone who wants to feel that [age].”
He said the offering will be a “very intentional, precise edit, both in terms of merchandise and assortment.” It will be centered around sportswear with key items including fleece, T-shirts, hoodies, tracksuits, sneakers, underwear and some outerwear. “It’s meant to be a toolkit,” he said, “a wardrobe you can build on and keep mixing and matching over time.”
Prices will range from around $45 to $220, significantly below the core Off-White collection that retails for $175 to $4,000. “It’s really a click down from a price standpoint,” Fagnani said.
He said that while the launch is fairly straightforward, customers can expect a number of special projects, collaborations and capsules for L/AB in the future.
“L/AB is short for laboratory of fun,” he said. “We want to make this project very playful and collaborations are useful and very meaningful to keep the cultural edge, stay cool and go to places you don’t go by yourself.”
The collection will be offered online globally beginning on Tuesday as well as at select streetwear specialty stores and other mainstream retailers through the wholesale channel. Fagnani said North American remains the brand’s key market, along with Europe, but it also has a solid business in Asia and other key countries.
L/AB will offer two primary collections a year going forward, Fagnani said — spring and fall — with other drops targeted to specific markets during the year.
Working with creatives is nothing new for Off-White. Earlier this year the company launched 10 x 10: Off-White Icons Reimagined, a project where 10 creatives were tapped to rethink some of the brand’s best-known pieces. The offering includes a bag from Raul Lopez, jeans from Guillermo Andrade, shoes from stylist Veneda Carter, eyewear from photographer and director Renell Medrano and a sneaker from Kid Cudi. That project will continue for the next year.
Joey Gabbay, CEO of Bluestar Alliance, which owns Off-White, said: “L/AB c/o Off-White represents an important evolution within the Off-White universe, expanding how new generations can engage with the brand through product, experiences and creative participation. We see significant opportunity in building platforms that foster deeper, more meaningful connections with consumers while remaining culturally relevant and globally scalable.”
