Game changer” is an overused phrase, but in the case of Virgil Abloh’s appointment as Louis Vuitton’s artistic director in March 2018, it’s perhaps justified. That’s not just because he’s Vuitton’s first black design lead (one of the first at any heritage fashion house, in fact) or because he has no formal fashion training. (That didn’t stop Raf Simons.) It’s because the streetwear aesthetic, hitherto considered lowly by some, that Abloh has helped propagate through his self-started brands Pyrex Vision and Off-White, not to mention his role as creative director to a certain Kanye West, is now the highest height of fashion.

The Vuitton move has been variously hailed as a historic victory for diversity in the so-white industry or a triumph of hype over substance. (Show us a brand that is killing it without hype.) Whatever the case, Abloh is now in a uniquely powerful position to change what you wear, even if you’re not one of the fortunate few who can afford to shop at Vuitton: the colours, shapes and pieces – see the wearable bags below, for instance – will ripple outwards and trickle down. And thanks to his cultural connections, plus collaborations with everyone from Ikea to Nike, he can influence at scale – and even redefine what you consider “luxury”.

Here, FashionBeans recounts how he got there.

The world’s most influential fashion designer was born in 1980 in Rockford, lllinois, to Ghanian immigrant parents (his mother was a seamstress, his dad managed a paint factory), Abloh grew up skateboarding, playing soccer, watching Michael Jordan and listening to NWA and Guns N’Roses like “an average sort of suburban kid”.

Abloh: “I was a kid who didn’t have the first-world knowledge of art and fashion. I was the kid shopping in malls.” Abloh’s parents let him DJ at the weekend but expected him to get a proper job, which explains how he wound up studying civil engineering at the University of Wisconsin.