Sunday’s news of the passing of Virgil Abloh—so young and so alive with insight, enthusiasm, and generosity—came as a sudden and horrendous surprise to the world of fashion and beyond. And yet walking out of this Abloh-designed Louis Vuitton show in Miami’s Maritime Marina tonight, little more than 48 hours after that terrible news broke, it was impossible to ignore the impression that Abloh was not only cognizant of what proved his fate, he was also the master of it.

How else to rationalize the symbolism of the monumental statue of Abloh that was positioned between show and postshow concert venue and seemed to be staring yearningly at a scarlet, L.V.-logoed hot-air balloon that constantly tugged against its moorings, as if hankering to float up and away? How else to process a collection, even if most of it was a reiteration of June’s Paris show, that, like Abloh’s unquenchable peripatetic practice, ranged with fearlessness and cultural pride across a frame of reference wide and high? How else to listen to a soundtrack, warmed up by “Strawberry Fields Forever” preshow, that was, according to those who know, barely tweaked after his passing yet was eulogical in both its joyfulness and melancholy? Or the drone-choreographed light display that animated a paper plane darting into the beyond before the phrase “Virgil was here” was spelled out?

This show had been diarized as a postmodern trunk show, a fancy client-facing event to coincide with Art Basel that was more stanza than chapter in the ongoing narrative of Abloh at Vuitton. When Sunday’s news dropped, all that changed. The Arnaults flew in en masse. Kanye West, Kim Kardashian West, and their daughter North sat close together opposite them. Rihanna, A$AP Rocky, and countless others who were both touched and inspired by Abloh came to join the audience.

Before the models emerged, Louis Vuitton’s CEO, Michael Burke, made a speech in which his voice sometimes cracked as the offshore wind rustled against the runway-planted birch trees, and we all sat silent. He said: “The deeply moving show we are about to see is born out of an idea Virgil and I first discussed three years ago. It is based around the traditional coming-of-age narrative, but of course, being Virgil, he spun and recontextualized the concept for the 21st century and in doing so expressed his own unique talents and vision. This idea of coming of age was important to Virgil because inspiring and empowering younger generations defined who he was. He used the platform he had to break boundaries, to open doors, to shed light on his creative passions—art, design, music, and of course, fashion—so that everybody could see inside—not only to dream of being part of that world but to also find ways to make that dream a reality.”