PARIS (AFP).- As an artist, architect and engineer, Virgil Abloh is fashion's renaissance man.

Now the hyperactive US designer is measuring himself up against the greatest polymath of all with a collection of clothes inspired by Leonardo da Vinci.

The T-shirts, sweatshirts and hoodies adorned with some of Leonardo's greatest works are a part of with the Louvre museum in Paris, which is staging a blockbuster show to mark the 500th anniversary of the Italian master's death.

The hoodies selling for up to 572 euros a piece ($640) mix Leonardo male nudes and paintings like "Saint Anne" with the four-arrowed logo of Abloh's ultra-hip Off-White label.

The world's most visited museum has been a magnet for black American megastars of late, with music's most famous couple, singers Beyonce and Jay-Z, shooting a video there last year for their album, "Apeshit".

Fans of the streetwear guru Abloh queued through the night last month to snap up a range of homewear he designed for a collaboration with budget furniture chain Ikea.

It included a backlit reproduction of Leonardo's "Mona Lisa" (159 euros) from the Louvre and a green synthetic turf rug bearing the legend, "Wet grass".

Another rug was modelled on an Ikea till receipt.

Abloh, 39, who took the reins of Louis Vuitton's menswear line last year, is one of the hottest fashion designers in the world, with some 15 million followers on social media.

Beyonce and Jay-Z
"I wanted to create a fertile collision between fashion and high art, Abloh said of his Leonardo-inspired streetwear.

The Louvre for its part said that it "rejoiced that such a multi-faceted artist as Virgil Abloh" had been inspired by its collections.

Like the Beyonce and Jay-Z video, which featured them standing regally in front of the "Mona Lisa" while a squad of scantily-clad dancers gyrated in front of Jacques-Louis David's "The Coronation of Napoleon", it argues that the exposure brings its treasures to a whole new public.

Rapper will.i.am, one of the founders of the Black Eyed Peas, shot an acclaimed video for his hit "Mona Lisa Smile" there in 2016, where he transposed himself into some of its greatest paintings.

He later made a documentary about the museum for Oprah Winfrey's television channel, OWN.

Abloh, a former creative director for rapper Kanye West also designs for Nike, and a retrospective of his work broke records at Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art before it transferred last month to Atlanta's High Museum of Art.

But the designer was forced to curb his manic globe-trotting schedule in September because of "health considerations", which meant him missing his own Off-White women's show in the French capital.

He told Vogue at the time that his doctor had warned him that "'this pace that you've pushed your body to is not good for your health'."

The Louvre's huge Leonardo show runs until February 24.


© Agence France-Presse