When I walked into the barbershop today, my barber and I immediately spoke about Virgil Abloh’s passing, and the shock we felt. As he faded my hair, he told me that the American designer had been one of the few whose work he followed, and that the first designer item he purchased was a pair off Abloh’s Off-White trainers. This is by no means a rare story: so many young black people identified with Abloh. In losing him, we have lost a real titan of black creativity, whose influence is felt in every corner – from streetwear kids browsing designs on London estates to the catwalks of Milan, Paris and Tokyo. You have to question why Abloh’s position as a black man at the top of the fashion industry, which draws so intensely from black history and culture, is so rare. But it’s a position that Abloh treated with humility, and a real sense of duty towards young black creatives. He set out to nurture the talent of the future himself: to ensure that the most senior positions in fashion and creativity would not be restricted to just one or two black visionaries. Abloh left an imprint on my own life at an unexpected moment. Around a year ago, after quitting my Westminster policy job to pursue a career in writing, the fashion mogul became one of the first people I ever interviewed. I was panicked before our Zoom call, the typical features of imposter syndrome creeping into my subconscious, as I questioned what I could possibly have to say to one of the great black pioneers of our age. Speaking to me from his home in Chicago, his disposition was instantly warming, he was full of zest and dynamism, with a gentleness and generosity that can be rare among people of his calibre. He was beaming with affirmations, and kept emphasising his commitment to uplift black creative youth across the world: whether they be designing sneakers, writing poetry or indeed conducting interviews. I’d never felt more encouraged to continue with writing. Alongside him in this interview was the poet Caleb Femi – a former young people’s poet laureate for London. Abloh had been looking to connect with black British talent, and via his friend Michaela Coel became aware of Femi, emailing him spontaneously to provide poetry for his fashion campaigns. This partnership led to Femi soundtracking Louis Vuitton’s spring-summer 2021 show in Tokyo, and the two continued a professional and personal relationship up to his final days. To me it’s this kinds of story, and this dedication to pay it forward to the next generation, that defines Abloh. His Post-Modern Scholarship Fund – used to support a new generation of Black fashion industry leaders – is a great example of Abloh throwing his weight and institutional status behind younger people, but it’s the small, intimate acts which we will remember too. He opened his autumn-winter 2020 Off-White show in the Musée du Louvre with Cartier Williams, a young tap dancer from Harlem, who wore a shirt reading “I support young Black businesses.” Williams tap-danced for the entire show, grooving around the models. His commitment to supporting young creatives was interwoven into everything Abloh touched. All of this almost suggests that he wasn’t also young himself: passing away at 41 is truly no age at all. In these few years he has gifted not only the fashion world but a global black community something that is timeless. His rise was meteoric, and inspirational. From interning with Fendi in 2009 for $500 a month, to becoming an artistic director at Louis Vuitton and founder of Off-White, Abloh has opened up opportunities for others and expanded the black imagination. It is a legacy he was well aware of. Speaking to me over Zoom that day, he said his dream was that “a young black kid can go to his parents and say, ‘Hey I’m not going to get a law degree, I’m not going to be working in any corporate space, I want to be a fashion designer.’” He imagined parental resistance to this being assuaged by his own story – he was proud that he had created a blueprint for that possibility. The loss of Abloh can not be overstated. I was just a journalist who interviewed him for two hours, and found a new-born confidence to continue in my career and believe in my own potential. It’s not possible to estimate just how many people he touched and inspired, and that is perhaps the greatest legacy any person could hope to leave. Jason Okundaye is a London-based writer and researcher