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Serena Williams is honoring Virgil Abloh a year after his death. The fashion designer died on November 28, 2021, after a private battle with cancer. “It’s been a year and I still can’t put into words the sorrow that I feel,” the tennis professional wrote in the caption.
“Your touch on the world will live on forever and I couldn’t be more grateful to have witnessed it and had the chance to collaborate with you. I still miss you all the time. Forever and ever,” she concluded.
Williams and Abloh had a very special friendship. They first collaborated in 2018 when he designed a collection with Nike in honor of her. Since then, they remained close. In 2019 she wore a custom uniform from the Off-White designer at the French Open, but she later revealed that it wasn’t the outfit he wanted her to wear.
Following his death, she shared her regret for not always listening to him when it comes to her outfits. “He always pushed the envelope in terms of fashion, with bold and inspiring ideas. “I still kind of regret not doing what Virgil told me to do,” she said in Vogue’s tribute film to Abloh’s legacy.
“He wanted me to wear this long skirt with the crazy train, and then a cape with a train, and then just walk out on the court. And I’m thinking, ‘Virgil, I like fashion, and I like pushing the envelope, but this — I just don’t think I can do this.’”
When they met again, she admitted she wasn’t “brave enough.” “I just wasn’t brave enough to go out there in all the red clay, and just walk out in this train, of like, a Met Gala at the French Open,” she explained.
Williams went on to walk the late designer’s final Louis Vuitton show for his Fall 2020 collection at Paris Fashion Week.