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Ebook K-Fashion wearing a new future present the content the stories of ten designers; a walk down style street; the DNA of Korean fashion; walking the world’s runways.
K-Fashion Korean Culture No.7 K-Fashion: Wearing a New Future Copyright © 2012 by Korean Culture and Information Service All Rights Reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means without the written permission of the publisher First Published in 2012 by Korean Culture and Information Service Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism Phone: 82-2-398-1914~20 Fax: 82-2-398-1882 Website: www.kocis.go.kr ISBN: 978-89-7375-566-0 04590 ISBN: 978-89-7375-163-1 (set) Printed in the Republic of Korea For further information about Korea, please visit: www.korea.net K-Fashion Wearing a New Future Le K-Chic (The 1990s) 44 The Korean Wave and a New Course for Fashion (The 2000s to Today) 51 Contents Chapter Three The Stories of Ten Designers 09 Prologue Chapter One 13 Walking the World’s Runways 13 A New Vision for Korean Beauty 16 Fashion: Another Korean Wave? 18 K-Fashion: Beyond Asia Chapter Two 25 The DNA of Korean Fashion 27 King Gojong's Silk Hat and the Gipson Girl (1894–1920) 29 The New Woman and the Spread of Western Styles (The 1920s–1930s) 31 Monpe and the Macao Man (The 1940s) 32 Korea's First Fashion Show and Fashion Designers (The 1950s) 36 Miniskirts: The Times They Are A-Changin' (The 1960s) 39 Youth and the Sociology of Denim (The 1970s) 42 Young Fashion and a Changing City (The 1980s) iv K-Fashion Wearing a New Future 55 Lie Sang Bong: A New Take on Traditional Korean Beauty 56 Lee Young Hee: Bringing the 'Clothes of the Wind' to the World 61 Son Jung Wan: Eternal Song of Femininity 65 Woo Youngmi: Captivating the European 'Homme' 68 Moon Young Hee: Navigating between Two Worlds 72 Lee Jean Youn: Traditional Tailor in a Modern Body 76 Doo-Ri Chung: Elegance Fit for a First Lady 80 Kim Hye-soon: A Million and One Variations on the Hanbok 83 Lee Kyumbie: The Next Louboutin? 86 Zo Myounghee: Looking for the 'It Bag' 89 Chapter Four A Walk Down Style Street 95 Myeong-dong: Fast Fashion Battleground 97 Dongdaemun: Linking History and Culture 100 Itaewon: A Toast to Cosmopolitanism 103 Cheongdam-dong: Brand-Name Stores and Designer Boutiques 106 Hongdae: Vive la Subculture 109 Garosu-gil: Where to Sample the Color of Trends 111 Buam-dong: A Ray of Handmade Sunshine 114 Appendix 120 Walking the World's Runways v “I think Korean fashion possesses exquisite cuts, superior quality, sophisticated color sense, and restrained details that avoid excessiveness These strengths are found not just in the collections created by Korean designers, but begin in Koreans’ ways of life and attitudes So while Korea may be relatively less well known for fashion, I’m certain the country will soon attain great global popularity for its attractive designs marrying Eastern and Western styles.” Gerald Tesson, buyer for Parisian department store Le Bon Marché “The hats and costumes and details were just so fantastic, I asked to see more They bought me books, and then I spent several days visiting the Korean Museum in New York I was captivated.” Comment on hanbok, Carolina Herrera, fashion designer “South Korea is shaping up as the next hotbed of innovative menswear, with three of its most prominent designers (Juun J., Songzio, and Wooyoungmi) creating tailoring with a twist for an international audience just as Seoul itself is becoming something of a fashion center.” The New York Times, June 21, 2009 vi K-Fashion Wearing a New Future Miss Gee Collection at the 2011 S/S Seoul Fashion Week Walking the World's Runways vii Prologue T he notion of “fashion” first entered human history in the late Middle Ages Since then, its evolution has linked daily existence to art, production to purchase, personal predilections to collective consumption practices Countries have used it in developing their own unique identities France’s luxury industry dates back to the time of Louis XIV Britain’s civil society came up with Casual Mod Spain— dubbed the “Orient of the East”—developed an alluring beauty flavored with Eastern elements, while Italy’s industrial development helped usher in a masterful form of fashion with an emphasis on materials and comfort Across the Atlantic, the emerging nation’s emphasis on efficiency was helping turn the U.S into a sportswear force All the while, this Western-focused fashion culture and market were captivated by examples of exotic beauty from Asia At the height of Rococo in the 18th century, European palaces were being decorated with the ersatz Chinese styling of “Chinoiserie.” In the 19th century, Japanese art was all Prologue Kaal E Suktae Collection at the 2011 F/W Seoul Fashion Week the rage in Western Europe Ukiyo-e (traditional woodblock paintings) enjoyed wild popularity—and delivered a major jolt to Impressionist painters More recently, the wave of postmodernism in the 1980s helped break down the cultural boundaries between the “West” and the “Third World.” Asian culture breathed new inspiration and imagination into the fashion trends of the Western world, a development that led to unique “ethnic” looks and forms of cultural expression Fashion in the 20th century emerged from a mass production-facilitated combination of information capabilities and global networking systems In the 21st, the brands that the marketplace recognizes are the ones that forge a distinctive stylistic language—powerfully original, with a unique identity— and mold it into a kind of cultural indicator In a 2009 study by Korea’s A hanbok fashion show featuring the creations of designer Lee Young Hee Presidential Council on Nation Branding, Ministry of Knowledge Economy, and Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA), fashion ranked that contributed to Korea’s distinctive style It also explains how, over a seventh among the leading industries determining the country’s image traumatic path to modernity that led it through harsh colonial rule and the At root, fashion is about selling an image, which means that the industry and the national image rely on one another Fashion has become one of the Korean War, the country came to develop its own fashion “language” and idiosyncrasies major yardsticks for judging a country’s competitiveness in manufacturing, It takes a look at the designers transforming Korean fashion today, with consumption, and trend-setting In that sense, Korean fashion has a long brief descriptions of the unique perspectives and styles they bring to the way to go But as Korean cultural exports (most notably K-Pop) have field Some set up shop in Paris during the 1990s, some have put in recent triggered greater and greater interest in Korean culture and art in general, showings at New York Fashion Week, and some have gone beyond the Korean fashion has been drawing more and more attention realm of apparel, producing the best of the best in everything from shoes to The book you are about to read gives an overview of Korean fashion’s handbags evolution to date It looks at the difference faces of its globalization, and Finally, the book offers a brief sketch of Seoul’s major fashion it takes you inside the modern history of the field, where the groundwork thoroughfares, each of them unique in its style offerings The pages before was laid for Korean style to make its presence felt throughout the world you present a brief but rich opportunity to witness a new fashion force that The process that it shows gives some sense of the evolutionary process is 150 years in the making 10 K-Fashion Wearing a New Future Prologue 11 Chapter one WALKING THE WORLD'S RUNWAYS A New Vision for Korean Beauty September 2012 marked the sixth season of Concept Korea, an effort launched in 2010 to raise global awareness of Korean fashion Held at The Stage in New York’s Lincoln Center, the event expressed the theme of the project—the obangsaek, Korea’s five signature colors—through a performance by five dancers from the company of modern dance pioneer Martha Graham It was also an occasion to see the 2013 S/S Collection, and it shattered all expectations, drawing a crowd of around 450 luminaries, including such influential fashion experts as New York Fashion Week founder Fern Mallis, Vogue stylist Philip Bloch, and Colleen Sherin, fashion director for New York’s exclusive Saks 5th Avenue department store Journalists from such prominent fashion magazines as Elle, Cosmopolitan, and Harper's Bazaar came out in force to cover the proceedings It was a sign of just how strong New York’s interest in Korean fashion has become 12 K-Fashion Wearing a New Future Doho 2012 S/S Collection at Concept Korea Walking the World's Runways 13 Models display creations by designer Song Jung Wan (left) and Kim Hongbum (right) at the Concept Korea 2013 S/S presentation Opening performance of Concept Korea by five dancers from the Martha Graham Dance Company There, in the world’s premier modern fashion mecca, five of Korea’s were emotionally laden blends of retro reminiscence with the designer’s top designers tackled the Concept Korea challenge Each of them—Lie signature brand of avant garde Kye, a relative newcomer, offered a Sang Bong, Choi Bo Ko, Song Jung Wan, Kathleen Hanhee Kye, and Kim lighthearted, witty take on a repressive, suffocating modern society, Hongbum—presented an array of distinctive pieces developed around the and the desolation of its young people In the process, she showed an theme By then in its third year of sharing Korea’s fashion culture with New aesthetic all her own: tattoos developed around the theme of school York audiences, Concept Korea had earned a reputation with fashion’s violence, high-heeled shoes with a skull motif Finally, Kim used the theme elite as a place where designers took exciting risks of “Extreme Weather,” his clothing serving as a canvas to capture images And all five of them stepped up Choi won plaudits for the beauty of of rugged terrain his juxtapositions of colors, likening Korea’s bright hues to its traditional Taken together, the work of these five designers represented an attempt rice dish of bibimbap Son drew inspiration from the Spanish painter to break past the confines of traditional aesthetics, defining a new image Joan Miró’s work Everything Under the Sun, her spellbinding silhouettes for Korea in a modern context Reaching beyond the idea of the Korean as emanating an oneiric, lyrical feel, like rays of sunlight scattering under global, the designs that they came up with uncovered a unique universality lush forest Lie turned to images and notes from an old photo album to with global potential—and won rapturous praise from New York audiences develop a collection on the theme of “Nostalgia.” The resulting outfits in the process 14 K-Fashion Wearing a New Future Walking the World's Runways 15 More recently, musical exports in the K-Pop genre have ushered in a Korean Wave (called “Hallyu” in Korean) whose ripples have carried it beyond core audiences in Southeast Asia and onto European and North American shores More and more overseas audiences were consuming the latest in Korean culture, and the country’s image began to rise First it was miniseries, then K-Pop and Korean cuisine Now, K-Fashion is helping feed the wave In January 2012, the Korean International Style Show (KISS) was staged in Tokyo’s Yoyogi Daiichi Taiikukan Jointly organized by Korea and Japan, it exemplified the trend that has been under way in recent years Its mix of K-Pop and fashion drew an audience of more than 33,000 over three days, with big K-Pop names like Girls’ Generation, Kara, and Sistar taking center Models take the catwalk during the 'K-Collection' fashion concert in Seoul, March 2012 K-Pop stars, super models, and celebrities attended the K-Collection, an event that combines fashion and music stage with designer Lie Sang Bong and the fashion brand Spicy Color K-Fashion was riding the wave of a “Korea brand” rendered suddenly trendy by television and music Korea’s department stores were thronged Fashion: Another Korean Wave? by Chinese tourists, who arrived carrying photographs of K-Drama stars and left carrying Korean-brand clothing The YouTube-borne spread of Korean designers first began heading overseas in the early 1990s, but K-Pop into the global market has drawn much attention to the fashion and they often found themselves hampered by global perceptions of the beauty styles worn by its major acts country’s “brand.” Fashion depends greatly on the images conjured up Recently, Korean culture is being commodified and adapted to industry by the country it comes from, the sense of it being a superior culture As a form of pop culture, fashion now has a secure footing in the European In major fashion markets like France, Italy, the United States, and Great market based on tie-ins with massively popular K-Pop performers The Britain, the styles coming from Korea’s designers were relegated to the fashion world has begun partnering with local entertainment agencies: periphery E-land with SM, Reebok with JYP Entertainment, Cheil Industries with In 2004, things began to change The television miniseries Winter YG Entertainment Together, they are developing ideas for combining Sonata met with explosive popularity in Japan; the outfits, scarves, and fashion with the market-opening prowess of the agencies’ acts In the hairstyles of leads Choi Ji-woo and Bae Yong-joon became all the rage process, they hope to ratchet up the pace of the global expansion 16 K-Fashion Wearing a New Future Walking the World's Runways 17 K-Fashion: Beyond Asia OLIVE, and BASIC HOUSE—a sign of the growing power of K-Fashion Korea’s big fashion businesses have adopted a new strategy for expansion They are working to establish their own distinctive identity and characteristics, either by absorbing existing designer brands or developing their Bean Pole’s outfits for the Korean national team at the 2012 London Olympics own Cheil Industries, an established global brand, has its own Bean Pole and Bean Pole Ladies brands, as well as designer Jung Kuho’s Kuho and Lebiege labels, while LG Fashions offers the womenswear lines MOGG and TNGT Bean Pole’s outfits for the South Korean team at the 2012 London Olympics drew global attention when Time listed them among the event’s best uniforms These brands have been particularly hot in the Chinese market, where stratospheric growth has put them on par with some of the world’s top labels Back home, the department stores may be filled with foreign names, save for a select handful of major corporate brands In China, it’s a different story Take Shanghai’s famous Babaiban Located in the central Pudong district, it ranks third among the country’s department stores for sales It also houses no fewer than 15 stores selling E-Land brands A number of them rank first in their category for sales, including Scofield menswear and Paw in Paw children’s clothing And it’s not just E-Land brands: a wide range of other Korean labels have taken up residence there, including Cheil Industries’ Bean Pole, LG Fashion’s HAZZYS, Kolon’s QUA, OLIVE des 18 K-Fashion Wearing a New Future Things are much the same in the city’s exclusive Gang Hui Shopping Mall, located in the Xuhui district An outlet of the E-Land womenswear brand Roem on the third floor of the plaza nets some of the mall's top sales—about $3.1 million a year A few steps past it is Teenie Weenie, whose 2,512 m2 store racks up about $4 million in annual sales The site offers one-stop shopping with everything from children’s clothes to luxury wear It is A Teenie Weenie store crowded with Chinese customers the only store in the mall with facilities this size Along with the big corporations, a number of smaller companies have made impressive inroads in the international market These roaring mice have helped shape the K-Fashion terrain by beating the bigger companies into markets abroad One example is Youngdo Velvet Founded in 1960, it made the decision to enter a high value-added industry making a fabric that, until then, only advanced countries had the capabilities to manufacture In the process, it helped turn Korea from an importer of velvet to an exporter By 2001, it was the world’s top producer and exporter of the cloth Its Three Eagle velvet has long been used by such leading global brands as Giorgio Armani, Anne Klein, and Zara The company’s spirit of craftsmanship led it to undertake an innovative expansion of its facilities that brought about Walking the World's Runways 19 Myeong-dong Dongdaemun The rise and fall of fashion streets is closely tied to the evolution of the fashion industry Dongdaemun offers a distillation of the Korean fashion industry’s growth over the years Cheongdam gives the most unvarnished of glimpses at the aesthetic of the country’s new rich class Garosu-gil gives voice to a new mode of living exemplified by the so-called “creative class,” while internationalized Itaewon shows a distinctly new Korea that Buam-dong Seven Faces of K-Fashion is merging with different cultures and the values they represent Buamdong, in contrast, is a paean to the slow life and the warmth of the handcrafted, offering an alternative to people worn down by life’s hectic pace The types of stores that cluster along these avenues have changed a great deal over the years No longer are Korean fashion thoroughfares the exclusive province of the customized suit shops of the ’70s, the designer boutiques of the ’80s, or the department stores of the early ’90s–today, we are entering a new age of specialist private-label apparel (SPA) and Hongdae discount stores The “select shops” that emerged in the late ’90s, as well as the “concept shop” and its lifestyle options, have contributed to enriching the urban landscape The fashions on the streets are a mirror reflecting the mood at a particular moment in time Myeong-dong: Fast Fashion Battleground Itaewon Located in the heart of Seoul, the Myeong-dong neighborhood was redeveloped into an industrial area in the years after the Korean War During the 1960s, it was famous as a haunt for literati and the art world Cheongdam-dong In the ’70s, its designer boutiques were thronged by girls’ high school students during graduation and college entrance season It was Korea’s premier shopping street, crowded with fashion-forward young people—it 96 K-Fashion Wearing a New Future A Walk Down Style Street 97 Garosu-gil was to the point where newspapers and television shows would report the arrival of spring every March with coverage of the Myeong-dong fashions By the ’80s and ’90s, the neighborhood was transforming into a massively scaled commercial district visited by an estimated 1.3 million people a day, its influx of consumers of various stripes and tourists from overseas earning it designation as a Special Tourism Zone The early 2000s brought the Korean Wave, and with it the arrival en masse of global SPA brands like Forever 21, Zara, Mango, H&M, Uniqlo, and The Gap Suddenly, Myeong-dong was an arena for them to duke it out In just three years, SPA sales went from 500 million won in 2005 to three times that An estimated 1.5 million people hit the streets of Myeong-dong each day; on weekends, that tally rose to 2.3 million Korea responded to the foreign S PA o n s l a u g h t w i t h i t s o w n alternatives ABC-Mart, Seconds, Mixxo, SPAO, Spicy Color, Codes Combine, Culture Call, and others began entering the ring to compete with the overseas businesses Seconds is the SPA brand of Global and local SPA brand stores in Myeong-dong Cheil Industries, the country’s top fashion business, which developed Myeong-dong is a popular shopping district for both Koreans and international visitors 98 K-Fashion Wearing a New Future it to target customers in their for them SPAO was developed by E-Land with the mission of supplying twenties and thirties The name the right clothes for Korean tastes and frames Mixxo boasts a huge, is supposed to represent the time diverse selection—15,000 items per year—while Spicy Color offers an eye- it takes for anyone who visits the catching assortment of colors and designs, its concept being “a store to store to find the trend that’s right satisfy all five senses.” A Walk Down Style Street 99 Dongdaemun: Linking History and Culture Sprawling over a 99,000 m2 area, Dongdaemun Market is a fashion hub The area of Dongdaemun is typically divided in east and west To the east are traditional wholesale markets like Cheong-Pyunghwa, Dong-Pyunghwa, Gu-Pyunghwa, and Shin-Pyunghwa, not just for Korea but for all of Asia It brings together 80,000 fashion along with design venture businesses businesses visited by an estimated 600,000 people each day The crowds like Designer Club Gu-Pyunghwa has the peak at the late-night hours of ten to two; things are still bustling come largest international presence of any of five o’clock It is the market that never sleeps Dongdaemun’s markets, drawing a nonstop The block between the avenues of Jongno 5-ga and Cheonggyecheon stream of buyers from Russia, Poland, the 5-ga is home to Gwangjang Market, which could be called the progenitor Middle East, South America, and all over Asia of today’s Dongdaemun Market Gwangjang was the country’s first modern Designer Club is especially popular among market, granted approval in 1905 by the Korean Empire’s government for Hanseong (Seoul’s name at the time) It attracted hordes of production workers and companies in the 1960s and 1970s, when the labor-intensive textile industry accounted for a significant chunk of the country’s exports Namdaemun Market also picked up design and planning capabilities from the fashion industry in the early 1990s, but it had nothing on Dongdaemun in terms of productivity Dongdaemun successfully wrested the fashion market crown away from Namdaemun, fought off the department store charge, and developed into an incubator for up-and-coming designs The site benefits from a terrific location, crisscrossed by four subway lines and accessible to two stations It provides a one-stop “synergy base” that solves every service need from production to distribution Its business compete in a lightning-speed race to develop new products, and it is the locus of a comprehensive network of market information These elements are what helped make today’s Dongdaemun one of the world’s fashion meccas Seoul has a fashion industry market amounting to about $25 billion a year, and more than 30% of that comes from the area of Dongdaemun Fashion Town 100 K-Fashion Wearing a New Future local retailers with scores of fashion plates Migliore flocking there to see the latest designs To the west, newer fashion malls like Migliore, Doota, and Hello aPM are waging an intense sales competition Migliore’s story is especially notewor thy—the shopping mall is recognized as a legend in its own time, a monument that rewrote the history of Dongdaemun as a commercial zone Within a month of its 1996 opening, it was the neighborhood’s single biggest shopping mall Even when the foreign exchange crisis of the late 1990s sent sales plummeting by more than 50% at market districts everywhere, Migliore outpaced department stores in sales by offering fashions for every consumer taste, along with a wide range of events Doota A Walk Down Style Street 101 Doota was built by the Doosan conglomerate for the staggering cost Dongdaemun Design Plaza and Park (DDP) is set to open in the area The of 260 billion won (about $233 million in today’s money) Some 30% of park was designed as a combination leisure area/green space/culture its tenant sellers are designers with their own house or subcontracted zone by Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid following a decision by the City factories The mall is Korea’s SoHo, where designers come en masse to of Seoul to tear down the antiquated Dongdaemun Stadium and put up a show off their fashion-forward sensibilities It also stages a yearly venture history and culture park in its place This fashion street linking history with conference as a design incubator program, helping to discover new and tradition is now on a beeline for the future promising designers and offering opportunities to the residents of Doota’s own special Dooche (pronounced “doo-chay”) zone The east and west sections of Dongdaemun are sometimes referred to as “Dongpyeonje” and “Seopyeonje,” referring to the eastern and western styles of the traditional Korean singing genre known as pansori These days, those two areas play host to an enormous fashion market, luring buyers in with their own future-oriented siren song In 2013, the Itaewon: A Toast to Cosmopolitanism Itaewon is a global village in the heart of Seoul To Koreans, it is a place to go for a dose of exoticism; to international visitors and residents, it offers a taste of home Back in the Joseon era, Itaewon served as a way station for travelers to and from the city Under Japan’s colonial rule, it was home to a Japanese-only neighborhood And since the Korean War, it has Dongdaemun Design Plaza and Park functioned as an entertainment base for Americans Locals have dubbed it a street where you can “see the world without a passport.” It boasts cuisine from all over the world, as well as an openness to the “different” befitting an avenue where so many different peoples and cultures live side by side A veritable cornucopia of elements exist separately and together, from big-and-tall clothing shops to residential areas for foreign workers, an art museum (Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art) with a collection boasting essential works of modern and Korean traditional art, and luxury housing for diplomats This is today’s Itaewon The area actually has three major fashion streets: Comme des Garỗons Street, Gyeongnidan Street, and Serosu Street, which has recently emerged as one of Seoul’s hottest spots Comme des Garỗons Street stretches for about 700 meters between the Hangangjin and Itaewon 102 K-Fashion Wearing a New Future A Walk Down Style Street 103 subway stations As recently as Yoni P—noms de brand for London-educated husband-and-wife designer a few years ago, it marked the duo Steve J & Yoni P, who have built quite the résumé over the years: a terminus of the Itaewon high store with the famous SPA brand TopShop, selection twice in a row to street, but everything changed receive Samsung Fashion Design Fund assistance, and a dazzling debut at in 2004 with the opening of the London’s Fashion Week Today, their clothes are being sold in Japan, Hong Leeum museum And with Cheil Kong, Italy, and other places around the world; the designers themselves Industries’ August 2009 opening are involved in collaborations in various different areas of a flagship store for worldrenowned Japanese fashion designer Rei Kawakubos Comme T-shaped junction behind Comme des Garỗons Street des Garỗons brand, the street began its transformation into a new fashion and culture center Serosu Street arose in the area behind Itaewon Market on the way to Yongsan District Office The road in question was once known for antique furniture stores, but in the spring of 2011 the fashion stores starting Steve J & Yoni P En Pleine Nuit moving in Today, it is home to small body shops measuring about 10 to 30 m2 in area Most of them are two stories and under, with some located underground Recently, a T-shaped junction behind Comme des Garỗons Street has caught the attention of clued-in fashionistas The area calls to mind a European alleyway—narrow, but packed with memorable sights to see, including a number of hideaways for bright and talented young fashion designers and artists The Heo sisters (Ji-in and Ji-hye) who run En Pleine Nuit studied garment design in Paris, as did Kim Hyeon-seo and Kim Eunje, the managers of Hyades Kim Hui-yeong of Ryuikei opened a first shop here after studying design in London There is also a shop for Steve J & 104 K-Fashion Wearing a New Future A Walk Down Style Street 105 Cheongdam-dong: Brand-Name Stores and Designer Boutiques Once upon a time, the area around today’s 105 Cheongdam-dong address was home to a pond The waters of the Hangang River are also especially clear near 134 Cheongdam-dong, earning this area its current name of Cheongdam, meaning “where the clear waters flow.” Its emergence as a fashion street came in the 1980s, when Joongang Design Center prizewinners and second-generation designers Dennis Kim, Park Youn Soo, Lie Sang Bong, and Kim Chul Ung made it their home It was an optimal site for a new fashion street to replace Myeong-dong, the designer boutiques serving to draw in female university students at a time when there were no imported brands Over the years, its home district of Gangnam developed into a ritzy neighborhood, and Cheongdam became known as a style center for the new rich The kilometer-long road stretching from Louis Vuitton and the Apgujeong Galleria Department Store’s East Gate to Cheongdamdong Junction is home to literally dozens of stores for such luxury names as Cartier, Gucci, Prada, and Dolce & Gabbana The Cartier store was chosen as the brand’s fourth flagship location, after its stores in Paris, New York, and London Its building—the work of French architectural designer David-Pierre Jalicon—boasts an impressive exterior mixing Korean traditional wrapping cloth with patchwork decorated in bronze The Louis Vuitton store, which opened in September 2000, is Asia’s largest, covering an area of about 6,900 m2 The building itself is owned by the brand’s head office in Paris; famously, a design team from the Luxury brand-name stores of Louis Vuitton, Cartier, Ferragamo, and Prada in Cheongdam-dong main branch handled the interior work The exterior has a distinctive touch: the company’s angular logo changes form with light and movement 106 K-Fashion Wearing a New Future A Walk Down Style Street 107 in a way that is almost lifelike At the center of the luxury brand street is a store for Prada, which became widely known throughout Korea after the explosive popularity of its black nylon backpack for the working woman Recently, the company has been collaborating with Korean businesses with non-fashion items like the Prada Phone (with LG) and the Genesis Prada car (with Hyundai) Last but certainly not least is 10 Corso Como, a Cheongdam-dong landmark and major design attraction Onetime Italian Vogue editor-inchief Carla Sozzani originally founded this multi-purpose cultural space in 1990 In 2008, Cheil Industries opened a Korean branch, providing a distinctive and stimulating environment blending fashion with art, music, and food Hongdae is a must-visit for fashionistas seeking something different 10 Corso Como, a multi-purpose cultural space Hongdae: Vive la Subculture The streets of the area outside Hongik University, called “Hongdae” by locals, are a hotbed of club culture This dates back to the 1990s, when rock musician/artists began making their way to the neighborhood in droves The university itself is most famous for its art school Fittingly, the neighborhood across from it a major haunt for the wild and independently minded in every area, from art and design to dance, music, cartooning, video, and cultural planning All of this has given it a wealth of indie art to 108 K-Fashion Wearing a New Future A Walk Down Style Street 109 Garosu-gil: Where to Sample the Color of Trends Garosu-gil is one of the trendiest streets in Korea today Its history goes back to the 1980s, when small galleries in the traditional culture neighborhood of Insa-dong made their way south to where rents were much more affordable These were the roots of the street’s nonpareil cultural identity The people who came were a major subset of the creative The name “Garosu-gil” means a tree-lined street Recently, the street has become one of the trendiest streets in Korea rival London’s Soho or Brooklyn People come here when they want to get away from stifling preconceptions Since becoming a fashion street, the commercial area in front of the university has become a must-visit for fashionistas seeking something different Recently, the heavily indie-oriented neighborhood has witnessed the arrival of big business, with big stores to match The fashion brand street begins at the Adidas store near the local playground, where Wausan 21-gil Road and Eoulmadang-no Street come together—this area has the highest traffic in the Hongdae area Hook a right in front of the university gate to find the real brand-name street Uniqlo occupies a particularly snappylooking structure, with a longtime American Apparel store underneath it Customellow, a more recent opening, is the ambitious menswear store idea of Kolon Industries Across the street are Codes Combine and Jill by Jillstuart stores; to the south is Nike The three-way intersection just below is home to particularly eye-catching Stussy and MF stores 110 K-Fashion Wearing a New Future A Walk Down Style Street 111 Indie designer and brand stores in Garosu-gil (1~2) Concept shops, Around the Corner (3), Aland (4~5), and KM Play (6) class: stylists, antique collectors, fashion designers, chefs, baristas, florists, photographers They were people who rejected the dominant cultural tastes for their own particular predilections, and the succeeded in making Garosu-gil into a so-called Street of Bobos (bourgeois bohemians) As new indie designer stores took up residence, the street became a new epicenter of inspirational independent design with popular potential As is often the case with streets created by artists, Garosu-gil has been transforming recently into a showcase for global trends Where antique shops and designer boutiques once stood, corporate-backed concept shops and brand-name stores are moving in, having the wherewithal to afford the increasingly pricy land values But while they may have lost their spots on the main drag, the indie designers still offer their threads and items on the neighborhood’s side streets, making them well worth a visit Garosu-gil is a good place to witness the evolution of the concept shop, one of the major fashion trends in recent years There’s Koon with a View, a lifestyle shop by Koon that is regarded as the first generation of Korean concept shops, and there’s Aland, a concept shop for emerging Korean designers KM Play is a joint effort by designers from the Dongdaemun area If there is one place on this street every visitor should stop at, it would have to be Simone Handbag Museum named “BagStage.” This massive museum has five stories above ground and five below, all dedicated to sharing the history of the handbag Visitors can avail themselves of a design market, museum shop, and café, or stop at an activity center where they can see daily shows of craftspeople creating bags BagStage is particularly popular among women—CNN dubbed it “every boyfriend’s nightmare.” (See p 119) 112 K-Fashion Wearing a New Future A Walk Down Style Street 113 Handmade bags and accessories by Blue Lim Buam-dong offers an alternative to people worn down by life’s hectic pace the latter’s skyscrapers—the casual stroller would be forgiven for thinking she was in a small village in the country, or somewhere other than Korea The people who call Buam-dong home have spent an average of 20 Buam-dong: A Ray of Handmade Sunshine years living the “handmade life.” They include designers who work in What we mean when we talk about a “fashion street”? It means more leather, metal, and customized suits, as well as some who stubbornly than just rows of SPA brands and luxury items testifying to a borderless adhere to a recycled fashion approach society An alternative exists for the people who want to escape the The owner of Blue Lim, a bag designer with two decades of experience hustle and bustle of downtown for a glimpse of the slower side of life working for the country’s top brands, established her factory as a way of The neighborhood of Buam-dong has been called a slice of country in the presenting something altogether different She is a Buam-dong artisan and heart of Seoul In the days of the Joseon Dynasty, it was a popular haunt for inheritor of the Italian approach to fashion, and her handmade bags are yangban aristocrats and members of the royal house, who came to enjoy truly one of a kind All of them use Italian-made leather, with customized its picturesque pleasures It is not far from the city center, but it has none of options tailored to the colors and materials of the customer’s choice 114 K-Fashion Wearing a New Future A Walk Down Style Street 115 Imseonoc’s 382 PLAY ground Post December Imseonoc has a reputation as something of Korean fashion enfant terrible, and she has made her lifestyle shop 382 PLAY ground into a multipurpose space for fashion, culture, design projects, and fabrics Set at the entrance of an unprepossessing side street and surrounded with a white wall, the Imseonoc showroom shows virtually the entire clothesmaking process from start to finish: cutting, backstitching, fitting, and all Gyeop (its name means “fold” in Korean) is costume designer Kim Jeongeun’s showroom-cum-workshop Designed by Kim and her film producer husband, it is chicken soup for the fast fashion-weary soul, boasting a winning combination of an attractive, understated setting (a new take on the ’60s-style building) and vintage items The name refers to the way our look changes in the breeze when we combine different materials, and the items on offer here are modern and romantic outfits with natural coloring Finally, Post December is the studio of rising fashion star Park So-hyun, a Who’s Next Paris veteran who snagged first place honors in a Korea Fashion Organization training program for creative designers Park studied in Britain, and the experience shows in her powerful tailoring Her studio offers trim handmade dresses with an added nod to sustainability 116 K-Fashion Wearing a New Future A Walk Down Style Street 117 Korea’s Fashion Museums The Korean Museum of Embroidery Chung Young Yang, a world-renowned researcher of comparative costumology, created this museum from an embroidery and East Asian garment collection forty years in the making Opened in May 2004, it boasts embroidery art from China, Vietnam, Japan, and more—from the world’s first silk thread-embroidered bronze mirror (believed to date to the 4th century BC) to religious costumes, armor, folding screens, wedding dresses, and imperial badges The museum was built to further awareness of the textile arts, and it houses a wide range of East Asian outfits for comparative analysis and research It also has a gallery, preservation room, library, and other facilities that have helped turn it into a required field trip stop for any student of Eastern embroidery Simone Handbag Museum The world’s first handbag museum was erected on Garosu-gil in July 2012 by the handbag makers at Simone Its collection features a range of items from 15th century antiques to contemporary items: a jewel-bedecked Cartier number from the 1920s, a Schiaparelli item, a Louis Vuitton cosmetics case inscribed with the name of the Duchess of Windsor, a 1968 chain mail bag by Paco Rabanne, an Art Nouveau bag by Boucheron, and a Vivienne Westwood “bum bag” made in 1996 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Louis Vuitton monogram bag The focus here is on presenting the special techniques, historical background, and aesthetic values of all these different eras in the most effective and dynamic of ways The New York Times described this museum as a must-visit for anyone stopping in Seoul; the Financial Times provided an exclusive report on what it called a “cultural shrine to accessories.” The Korea Museum of Modern Costume This museum takes an era-by-era look at changes in Korean womenswear over the half-century from the introduction of Western outfits until today Its more than 1,080 items of modern clothing include not only the works of such noted designers as Jin Te-ok, Sul Yoon-hyung, and Lie Sang Bong, but also garments worn by celebrities such as aviatrix Kim Kyung-o and violinist Chung Kyung Hwa With its exclusive focus on clothing, this museum spotlights the past, present, and future of Western outfits in Korea through the characteristics and styles of their different incarnations over the year 118 K-Fashion Wearing a New Future Hanbit Museum of Glasses It all started with a hobby: Lee Jeong-su was starting his own optometry center, and began collecting old glasses and glasses cases Twenty-odd years down the road, he had amassed more than 5,000 pieces of spectacle-related paraphernalia Today, the whole lot of it is housed in the Hanbit Museum of Glasses The collection includes everything from 17th century glasses from Korea and overseas to a tortoiseshell case (which took three years of coaxing to procure), a case embroidered with the ten traditional symbols of longevity (a unique glimpse at uniquely Korean beauty), 19th century optometry equipment, portraits of bespectacled Joseon nobility, and 18th century still lifes with glasses A Walk Down Style Street 119 APPENDIX Further Reading Korean Fashion Associations Korea Fashion Association www.koreafashion.org Korea Research Institute for Fashion Industry www.krifi.re.kr Korea Creative Content Agency www.kocca.kr Korea’s Fashion Museums The Korea Museum of Modern Costume www.kmmc.or.kr The Korean Museum of Embroidery www.bojagii.com Simone Handbag Museum www.simonehandbagmuseum.co.kr Lee Young Hee Museum of Korean Culture www.lyhkm.org Fashion Shows Seoul Fashion Week www.seoulfashionweek.org Seoul Fashion Artists Association www.sfaa.co.kr Concept Korea www.conceptkorea.org Designers’ Websites Lie Sang bong www.liesangbong.com Lee Young Hee www.leeyounghee.co.kr Son Jung Wan www.sonjungwan.com Woo Youngmi www.wooyoungmi.com Moon Young Hee moonyounghee.fr 120 K-Fashion Wearing a New Future Lee Jean Youn leejeanyoun.tistory.com Doo-Ri Chung www.doori-nyc.com Kim Hye-soon www.kimhyesoon.com Lee Kyumbie www.kyumbie.com About the Author Kim Hong Ki Top fashion curator, journalist, and power blogger Kim Hong Ki has spent many years reporting on Korea’s fashion market and designers He has been praised for his in-depth writing style that blends fashion with the humanities In addition to his numerous appearances as a television p anelist on TV Museum of Art , Masterpiece Scandal , and 15 Minutes to Change the World (Korea’s version of the TED Talks), Kim has also been a judge for the Seoul Collection at Seoul Fashion Week and the Seoul International Fashion Competition and planned various exhibitions and performances spotlighting mixtures of fashion with modern art His books include Chanel Goes to the Art Museum , Fashion Meets Psychology , Reading Hong Myung-bo , and The Humanities of Fashion He has also edited Fashion Designer Survival Guide , Fashion Design School , Alexander McQueen: Genius of a Generation , and Color Forecasting for Fashion Credits Planner Writer Translator Global Communication and Contents Division Kim Hong Ki Colin Mouat Edited & Designed by Seoul Selection Photographs The Korea Museum of Modern Costume, CJ Entertainment, Yonhap Photo, Newsbank Image, Ryu Seung-hoo, James Kim, Yi Jonggap, Robert Koehler