Usher was honored with the Virgil Abloh Award Tuesday at the 18th annual Harlem Fashion Row Fashion Show & Style Awards. He took the stage to accept the award and thanked the family members who helped guide him in the absence of his father.
“All of these people were significant parts of my ambition…They taught me to dream and run wild and use my imagination in fashion,” he said, before taking time to praise God for allowing him to be an entertainer. He continued, “I recognize Him more than anything for saving me in my hardest moments.”
Usher acknowledged the truth that “there’s a relevance now more than I’ve had years previous,” joking that it was possibly due to his Las Vegas residency and cherry-feeding segments. He then shifted gears to provide a more serious answer, one connected to Virgil’s 3% rule.
“This idea that innovation really starts by altering something that is familiar [by] 3%. So that right there became kind of a model for how I would view how I was introducing [my art] again, but I introduced it with what many of people on my team call my ambition of just looking up,” he said. “While they look right and left and always have my best interest and my back, I just dream and think of something that I think is a little better.”
Usher also found another connection to Virgil, calling back to one of the designer’s former quotes: “The world produces waves: You surf, you drown, you decide. Everything that you do is for that 17-year-old version of yourself.”
“That 17-year-old version of myself is the same thing that encourages me to this day, to make me fearless,” Usher said.
Nikki Ogunnaike, Christiane Pendarvis, Ruth E. Carter and Jason Bolden were also honored at the event.
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