“Codes”: it is not merely the title of a new exclusive exhibition, but also the key to understanding Virgil Abloh’s legacy. At the Grand Palais, a symbolic stage of French imagination and its dialogue with the avant-garde, the Fondation Virgil Abloh, in collaboration with Nike, has created a tribute that goes far beyond a traditional retrospective. It unfolds instead as an immersive journey into the world of one of the most influential creatives of the past decade, a figure who reshaped the relationship between art, fashion, design, and popular culture.The exhibition deliberately avoids the conventions of the “white cube” or the solemn rhetoric of a memorial. The space becomes a living environment, animated by the signs and gestures that defined Abloh’s vision: sneakers displayed as pop relics, installations recalling the shop windows of a global store, and settings that reflect the tension between consumer culture and community.

Visitors are drawn not as passive spectators but as clients within a total brand, an audience that encounters the product not only as an object but as a direct link to the designer’s identity.Alongside the iconic garments and objects, the exhibition reveals the backstage of creation: sketches, paper patterns, tools, and old computers. These fragments testify to a creative process that was hybrid, restless, and constantly open to new influences, where fashion intertwined with architecture, music, street culture, and design. “He was a researcher and avid collector , as enthusiastic about art and architecture as he was about skating and DJing. His practice embodied all of his passions, from high to low, which is felt in his work and personal collections.” – Shannon Abloh (President and Chair of Virgil Abloh ArchiveTM and Founder and Board President of the Virgil Abloh Foundation)