Virgil Abloh's Design Legacy Lives on with Disney's Create 100

Disney enjoy an illustrious relationship with the creative industries, particularly fashion having collaborated with everyone from Matthew M. Williams at Givenchy to the late Virgil Abloh. In 2022, the multi-hyphenate creator Abloh put his own graphic spin on Disney's Mickey Mouse, having previously imagined a rainbow-iteration of a 'Sorcerer’s Apprentice Mickey Mouse' for the iconic cartoon character's 90th anniversary. 'Walt Disney is in all of us', Abloh said at the time. The new Disney 100 Create project continues Abloh and Disney's legacy of inspiring childlike imagination and creation across all walks of life.

Honouring Disney's centenary, Create 100 is showcasing 100 contributions by global visionaries, to raise funds for the charity Make-A-Wish®, which grants life-changing wishes for children with critical illnesses. Their work means that for these children, dreams really do come true.

Today, the first of these items has been revealed; Structural Sorcerer – a Sorcerer’s Apprentice Mickey Sculpture designed by ALASKA ALASKA and contributed by Virgil Abloh Securities, the company which continues Abloh's creative legacy. Based off Abloh's previous collaborations with Disney, the mesh-like structure is rendered in a rainbow ombre - also nodding to Abloh's moving debut Louis Vuitton menswear runway in 2018. It is on view at the Design Hub at the Royal College of Art, London. An Honorary Visiting Professor for the esteemed university, Abloh has since been honoured by the school with a scholarship for extraordinary talent from financially restricted backgrounds, specifically Black British students.

‘It's more about a 'creative chaos' in the way that we have to allow into our creative community a sense of magical failure; to play within the magic, that sacred intuition that is in each of us; where to fail is, where you figure out how to do things better’, head of fashion at the RCA Zowie Broach tells SHOWstudio.

Broach explains that Abloh’s influence on emerging talent can’t be underplayed. In terms of how the late designer continues to inspire she told us, ‘first would be about potentiality and possibilities. To ensure we use our privilege to support young talent, in particulate young Black British talent. Secondly is about curiosity. Virgil states, ‘I am just a person searching for answers’. So asking questions that leads to more questions in effect create a flow of openness to the ideas, the community and those interrelations we require to make change.’

Items will be revealed weekly from today, Friday 28 July.