Ib Kamara Departs Off-White | Vogue
Four years after succeeding founder Virgil Abloh as the creative lead at Off-White, Ib Kamara has departed the brand.
In a statement on Monday morning announcing the news, Kamara said: “Off-White is bigger than any one idea, exactly as Virgil intended — a house with genuine values, rooted in culture, community, and the belief that fashion can speak to everyone. I leave with enormous pride in all we have made.”
Joey Gabbay, CEO of Off-White’s owner Bluestar Alliance, added: “We are deeply grateful for Ib’s vision, creativity, and the remarkable energy he brought to Off-White throughout his tenure.”
Kamara first worked with Off-White as a stylist after connecting with Abloh on Instagram in 2019. Following Abloh’s death in November 2021, Kamara was appointed as art and image director and presented his first show, Spring/Summer 2023, in Paris that year.
He was appointed creative director in 2024, the same year LVMH sold Off-White to Bluestar Alliance on what would have been Abloh’s 44th birthday. Kamara’s first show as the brand’s creative director was held in New York that September.
Founded in 2013, Off-White pioneered the merging of the worlds of streetwear and luxury that drove much of fashion in the mid-2010s. It quickly became the leading marque of the Milan-based New Guards Group, whose own founders had partnered with Abloh to develop and manufacture Off-White. In August 2019, New Guards Group was sold to Farfetch for $675 million.
Following the closure of Farfetch, LVMH purchased a 60% majority stake in the brand in July 2021, while the remaining 40% remained the property of Abloh, who had become LV men’s creative director in 2018. Abloh died only a few months afterward.
Off-White’s cachet is indelibly intertwined with Abloh’s legacy, who utilized it as a platform for his inclusive, collective approach to fashion creation — an approach whose ultimate agenda was to further access and inclusion. He once said his ultimate design ambition was, “making a global community regardless of the elitism, or sort of territorial-ness, that can happen in subculture.”
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