The “cheat code” is perspective

See things from every angle.

When you pick up an object, you don’t just look at it from one side — you turn it around, observe it fully. The same applies to everything you do, especially in art.

Today, I want to focus on Virgil Abloh and Playboi Carti. Both stood out because they approached their field from a different perspective.

If you listen to a Playboi Carti song and compare it to someone like Lil Baby, the sound is completely different. Yet if you read the lyrics, they’re often touching on the same core themes — money, sex, drugs, etc. What makes Carti’s work unique isn’t necessarily the message, but the lens through which he delivers it.

Virgil Abloh did the same in fashion. I remember in his conversation with Kevin W. Tucker for his exhibition “Figure of Speech”, there’s a part where he explains how human beings have a need to label everything. He uses an example: a water bottle doesn’t look like a wine bottle, but that doesn’t mean you can’t put wine in it. I want to bring that example back into this conversation — because putting wine in a water bottle is also a way of shifting perspective. That’s what Virgil’s entire career was about.
He studied architecture and engineering but chose to apply those disciplines to fashion. He took tools from one world to reimagine another.

Rem Koolhaas had a similar approach. Through AMO — the think tank side of OMA — he worked on non-architectural projects using architectural values. AMO is a key collaborator of Prada. They focus on aspects such as content creation and video production, and their involvement in the set design of the fashion shows began with the Spring/Summer 2004 show. All of it approached through an architectural lens.

This way of thinking creates entirely new techniques in any field.

It’s a mindset I believe in — shifting the frame, bending the rules, turning things around. Looking again.

That’s the real cheat code.