Civility Week and Common Read: Fashion Critic Robin Givhan and Emil Wilbekin

As part of FIT’s Civility Week initiative as well as its Common Read program, Pulitzer Prize-winning fashion critic Robin Givhan will discuss her book Make It Ours: Crashing the Gates of Culture with Virgil Abloh with FIT Marketing Communications Assistant Professor Emil Wilbekin. Givhan’s book is the college’s Common Read for the 2026–27 academic year.

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. Givhan’s book recounts a young man’s rise amid a cultural moment that would upend a century’s worth of ideas about luxury and taste.

This event is free and open to the public.