# Robin Givhan on Virgil Abloh with Dr. Elizabeth Way | Fashion Culture Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-museum-at-fit-fashion-culture-podcast-7576983/robin-givhan-on-virgil-abloh-with-dr-elizabeth-way-fashion-culture Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-museum-at-fit-fashion-culture-podcast-7576983/robin-givhan-on-virgil-abloh-with-dr-elizabeth-way-fashion-culture.md Podcast: [The Museum at FIT Fashion Culture Podcast](https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-museum-at-fit-fashion-culture-podcast-7576983) Published: 2026-02-01T12:00:00+00:00 Episode link: https://museumatfit.podbean.com/e/robin-givhan-on-virgil-abloh-with-dr-elizabeth-way-fashion-culture/ Audio file: https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/s3gxjqu6z4zi4j4v/mfit-podcast-virgil-abloh-liz-way-robin-givhan.mp3 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-museum-at-fit-fashion-culture-podcast-7576983/episodes/robin-givhan-on-virgil-abloh-with-dr-elizabeth-way-fashion-culture Duration seconds: 3525 ## Resource Robin Givhan, the recipient of a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism, presents her new book, Make It Ours: Crashing the Gates of Culture with Virgil Abloh. Appointed as head of menswear for Louis Vuitton in 2018, Abloh was the first Black designer to serve as artistic director in the brand's 164-year history and his rise was amid a cultural moment that would upend a century's worth of ideas about luxury and taste. In this conversation with Dr. Elizabeth Way, The Museum at FIT's associate curator of costume and accessories, Givhan discusses Abloh’s disruptive impact on the fashion industry, his controversial design methods, and his legacy as a figure of optimism. She notes that in the current cultural climate, choosing optimism is a "radical" act, and Abloh did so not out of naivety, but as the only way to move forward. Robin Givhan spent more than 25 years writing about politics, race, and the arts at The Washington Post as a fashion critic and most recently, senior critic-at-large. This talk was recorded August 26, 2025. Transcript (pdf) The Museum at FIT (MFIT) is the only museum dedicated exclusively to the art of fashion in New York City. https://www.fitnyc.edu/museum ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-museum-at-fit-fashion-culture-podcast-7576983/episodes/robin-givhan-on-virgil-abloh-with-dr-elizabeth-way-fashion-culture/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-museum-at-fit-fashion-culture-podcast-7576983/robin-givhan-on-virgil-abloh-with-dr-elizabeth-way-fashion-culture.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.