Change… Is It That Scary?

As the news of the passing of multi-talented Artistic Director for Louis Vuitton men’s wear and founder of his own brand, Off-White, Virgil Abloh flooded the internet, I have been exploring who he was and discovered his extraordinary impact on several industries. I am embarrassed to write that I didn’t know much about him — was I living in a bubble? I was eager to know more about who this talented and creative man was and how I could have missed his impact. I started to read every article I could find. What he did with his 41 years was beyond impressive. I was inspired.

One element that kept surfacing while I was learning about Virgil Abloh was the “three percent rule”. In his lecture to Harvard’s architectural school , he addressed this concept as well as the notion of “cheat codes”. His idea was that you can take an existing design and change it just a bit, and it will qualify as new. For example when Nike looked to him to change one of their shoes, the iconic Air Jordan 1, he knew the shoe design was perfect. Abloh brought his deconstructed aesthetic to the design, changing the look of the shoe and not the basic function. The shoe and The Ten Collection created by Abloh’s Off-White brand were a huge success. It dawned on me that you can apply the 3% rule to so many things…

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