Feature · fashion
Seoul Fashion Week: A vision of Korean designers’ creative future
Korean culture has spread across the world like wildfire in recent years, with the hugely successful K-pop, K-film and K-beauty sectors attracting insatiable interest. Now, South Korea is looking to take its fashion industry to the next level, too.
Korean culture has spread across the world like wildfire in recent years, with the hugely successful K-pop, K-film and K-beauty sectors attracting insatiable interest. Now, South Korea is looking to take its fashion industry to the next level, too.
The drive is being led by the biannual Seoul Fashion Week (SFW), which, according to the city’s government, aspires to become the “fifth significant fashion week in the world” after the “Big Four” of New York, London, Milan and Paris.
Below are some of the key takeaways from the week-long event.
Models walk the runway during rehearsal for the BONBOM show as a part of Seoul Fashion Week 2022 AW on March 18, 2022 in Seoul, South Korea. Credit: Justin Shin/Getty Images
The Seoul Museum of Craft Art held in-person shows. Credit: Justin Shin/Getty Images
C-ZANN E is a brand inspired by minimalism and traditional Korean hanbok. Models wore ornate headpieces down the runway. Credit: Justin Shin/Getty Images
BIG PARK’s AW 2022 collection included floral prints inspired by camellia flowers. Credit: BIG PARK
New formats unleash creativity
Due to Covid-19, the majority of brands again showed virtually, filming their Autumn-Winter 2022 creations with varied approaches — some to the point of distraction, and others in ways that felt almost superior to physical runway shows.
SEOKWOON YOON
opened with a model wearing this look, with patterns informed by the juxtaposition of industrial materials and flowers. Credit: Seokwoon Yoon
Yoon said he felt young Korean designers have a lot of potential in the global fashion industry. “They have their own process and ideas.” Concrete tetrapods from a Busan beach influenced this sculptural piece. Credit: Seokwoon Yoon
Models dance in COMSPACE NOT ENOF WORDS’s Autumn-Winter show. Credit: Justin Shin/Getty Images
COMESPACE NOT ENOF WORDS’ collection comprised of monochrome looks. Credit: COMSPACE NOT ENOF WORDS
Theories by artists Wassily Kandinsky and Hilma af Klint informed HANACHA STUDIO’s approach this season. Credit: HANACHA STUDIO
Miss Gee Collection was staged in both outdoor and indoor film locations. Credit: Justin Shin/Getty Images
Korean fashion on the global stage
Hyejeong Cho, a director in charge of Seoul Fashion Week, said interest in Korean fashion is growing, and that the city’s government is “actively supporting Korea’s leading designers and brands to enter the European market.” For the first time, four Korean designers including Eenk and Doucan represented SFW at Paris Fashion Week — a time when the world’s most important buyers and influential editors descend on the fashion capital.
DOUCAN showed at Paris’ Palais Brongniart. Credit: DOUCAN
Choi said his approach is to make clothing that makes you feel “happy the moment you put them on.” Credit: DOUCAN
At the historical Palais Brongniart, Doucan wove floral and geometrical tie-dye prints, mainly in the red, blue and white of the Korean flag, into beautiful silhouettes — some curvier, others more structured — in a very wearable collection that paid tribute to Seoul. “Seoul is a city of night,” said the label’s creative director Chung-Hoon Choi. “I wanted to show the splendid yet dynamic energy felt through this collection.”
Eenk, another brand to debut in Paris, presented a collection that drew on 1980s fashion editorials with strong, vintage-inspired pieces that at once evoke glamour and power. “(The brand’s) identity is to seek the balance of classic but unique, familiar but contemporary and novel at the same time,” Eenk designer Hyemee Lee said.
EENK designer Hyemee Lee said the rising popularity of K-culture worldwide has given designers more confidence. Credit: EENK
“More brands in South Korea have their own firm identity now and consumers are also pursuing their own tastes and senses rather than just following the trends. I think it’s the beginning of building Seoul’s unique story and culture,” said Lee. Credit: EENK
Embracing identity, taking risks
“I want to put my own culture through my collection. I think it should represent where I live and what I’m working on.”
Painters’ Autumn-Winter collection mixes the conceptual with ready-to-wear. Credit: Painters
A model poses in one of Painters’ gowns — this one made entirely of deadstock. Credit: Painters
“The mountains in the painting have bold, energetic lines, which can be translated into a 3D silhouette,” said Chung, adding that layering the silhouette with fabrics created more drama. Credit: MINA CHUNG
“I wanted one part of the collection to be very bold yet simple, and another part to be more direct and eye-catching, more loud,” she said. Credit: MINA CHUNG
Chung said that young Korean designers are increasingly searching for what makes them unique at a time when K-fashion is in high demand. “I think that if Korean designers don’t try harder, the little fame we have will disappear very soon and this whole industry will fall back. We need to push ourselves harder to encourage more experimental designs that can represent Korea, and try to make more brands that can (match) the international standard of designer brands.”
Top image caption: A model poses for Miss Gee Collection.
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