BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, The New Yorker, Elle

From Pulitzer Prize-winning culture critic Robin Givhan comes a groundbreaking chronicle of the legacy of Virgil Abloh, whose iconic rise to the top of the fashion industry transformed our ideas about the connection between who we are and what we wear

'Captivating and beautifully written' Tom Ford

'Thoughtful, intelligent, honest and masterfully crafted' Marc Jacobs

'A thrilling journey into the mind of a genius.' Edward Enninful

'A must-read' Elaine Welteroth

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In the spring of 2018, Louis Vuitton sent shockwaves around the fashion industry. They appointed Virgil Abloh, a designer with no formal training, to be the head of menswear and the first Black artistic director in the brand's 164-year history - a cultural moment that would upend a century's worth of ideas about luxury and taste.
Using one man's remarkable path to the top of the luxury establishment, Make It Ours uncovers the larger story of how the cloistered, exclusive fashion world faced a revolution from below, dressed in puffer jackets and sneakers. From the designers emboldened to storm the gates, to the simple T-shirt coming to hold as much cultural power as an haute couture gown, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Robin Givhan chronicles how Abloh propelled an entire industry forward.
With unparalleled access to Abloh's family, friends, collaborators, and contemporaries like Ozwald Boateng and Abloh's mercurial but critical employer and mentor Kanye West, Givhan weaves a spellbinding biography of a singular creative force and a powerful meditation on fashion and race, taste and exclusivity, genius and luxury.

"Make It Ours is the best book on the luxury business since Teri Agins' Hijacking the Runway." - Financial Times

"A remarkable biography of a singular creative force and a powerful meditation on fashion and race." - Rolling Stone

"Toggling between biography and cultural history, Givhan . . . offers an illuminating analysis of [Virgil] Abloh’s middle-class, first-generation American upbringing, one that suggests his quiet confidence and seeming unflappability were deliberately cultivated." - New York Times

"Robin’s look into the life and work of the late, great, Virgil Abloh is thoughtful, intelligent, honest and masterfully crafted. Virgil’s freethinking and influence on the possibilities of what creativity can be was a tour de force." - Marc Jacobs

"Virgil was a rule breaker who always had his finger on the pulse, and Robin Givhan’s unique perspective and meticulous research expertly chronicles his unconventional path and meteoric rise in fashion. Thought-provoking, emotional, and illuminating, this book is a definite must-read!" - Tom Ford

"Virgil’s journey from humble beginnings to the top of the fashion industry is one that needs to be studied. Make It Ours is a thrilling journey into the mind of a genius." - Edward Enninful, former editor in chief of British Vogue

"Virgil Abloh . . . changed the way upper echelons of the [fashion] industry engage with younger generations and even social media. In Make It Ours, [Robin Givhan] captures that shift with the kind of clarity and nuance that honors the late designer’s many layers." - Essence

"Legendary . . . incisive and unflinching . . . One of [Givhan’s] gifts is the acute power of observation." - SSENSE Magazine

"Robin Givhan’s powerful new book explores a fashion legacy — and a life — that stretched far beyond labels. . . The book is less a biography than it is a study of success in fashion and culture: the parameters around it, the roadblocks toward it, the precedents others have set for it." - Harper's Bazaar

"What makes Givhan’s book so compelling is not only her analysis of the designer’s creativity and ambition, but the historical context she builds around it — a reminder why she is an American icon in her own right." - Interview