Vogue Australia February 2022

I have been avoiding sitting down to write this letter to acknowledge the tragic loss of Virgil Abloh, aged just 41. Doing justice to his impact and life is difficult. Virgil was very close with our fashion director Christine Centenera. They met working on sets and collaborating with Kanye West. Before Virgil was appointed artistic director of Louis Vuitton’s menswear, we sat down for lunch in Milan in 2017. He showed us pictures of his upcoming collection for Off-White – which he would show the following week in Paris – a collection inspired by Princess Diana on the 20th anniversary of her death. Virgil’s impact on the fashion industry was most profound because he wasn’t an elitist. He treated everyone with respect and curiosity. The fashion industry is built on…

Virgil Abloh was a fashion designer who always did things differently. His path to the very top of the fashion industry – as artistic director of menswear for Louis Vuitton – was anything but conventional. And when he reached the apex of the fashion world – as designer for the world’s biggest luxury brand as well as the founder of his own very successful label, Off-White – he made sure he brought others up with him. Even the way he managed his illness, and death in late November at the age of 41, was unorthodox, preferring to keep it private with those closest to him, and to focus on his work. An aggressive and terminal form of cancer would have slowed most people down, but Abloh was unlike any other…

Jon Ervin New York-based photographer Jon Ervin captured up-and-coming Australian actress Odessa Young on location in Brooklyn’s Marine Park for the feature ‘Forever young’, from page 128. “It was a seamless and collaborative experience all around,” he says of his first time working with Vogue Australia. “Odessa contributed to every image. From the beginning of the shoot, she understood our direction and let herself take on this character from the story,” he explains of the 24-year-old actress. Of the shoot’s collective effort, he adds: “We had a lovely team that worked hard to create these images and that’s all you can really hope for on these shoots. That’s what makes them memorable.” Jonah Waterhouse For this issue, 24-year-old Vogue fashion features and news assistant Jonah Waterhouse sat down with 23-year-old…

I was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in 2005. My parents couldn’t have children, so they chose to adopt. When they were searching through countries to adopt from, they fell in love with Ethiopia and its culture. So they went over and adopted me when I was seven months old, and I’ve lived in Sydney, Australia, ever since. I’m very proud to be an Australian and grateful to have grown up in a country where there are so many opportunities, but I don’t identify solely as an Australian or as an Ethiopian. My little brother Kendly is from Colombia, I’m from Ethiopia, and my parents are Australian. So we call ourselves Aussicolopians. It’s a little family name we have and it incorporates all of our cultures. You hear adoption stories…

BLOW UP This season there was a continuation of fashion’s affinity for voluminous shapes, with brands like Molly Goddard and Halpern updating standout overblown silhouettes from past seasons. However, it was the debut runway show of 25-year-old designer Harris Reed that put a new gender-neutral spin on the trend, embodying fashion’s desire to break free from confines in a post-lockdown world. Harris Reed, as reviewed by Benji Park TIKTOK: @FASHIONBOY “Reed grew exponentially off social media during lockdown after being initially catapulted into the spotlight by Gen Z poster boy, Harry Styles. He then utilised this to showcase his gender non-conforming, upcycled pieces. Nothing is more Gen Z than growing a genderless, thrifted fabric-sourced brand on social media with Styles as your star.” THIS MOD LOVE Harking back to the…

JAMES J. ROBINSON The 26-year-old photographer, filmmaker and writer is based between Melbourne, New York and Los Angeles. CAN YOU RECOUNT A SIGNIFICANT MOVE OR STEP IN YOUR CAREER THAT TURNED OUT TO BE A TURNING POINT THAT LED YOU TO WHERE YOU ARE TODAY? “Living in America, your level of ‘success’ is measured by the largest invoices and the biggest celebrities you get to work with. I was admittedly roped into this world when I first moved to New York, wanting to attain that success and pay my rent comfortably. But when I did, I found it unfulfilling … I came back to Melbourne for a holiday and instead chose to photograph my Filipino family. Going from shooting Kylie Jenner to shooting my family and friends was an important…