Meet the emerging creatives showcasing their latest collections in the South-Korean capital
As one fashion week closes, another opens: enter Seoul. Having been called off last February amid the coronavirus outbreak, this season, the South-Korean capital’s event returns for AW21 in a digital-only format.
In recent years, Seoul has cemented itself as a serious player in the global fashion scene. Brands like Wooyoungmi, Blindness, PushBUTTON, Ader Error, and Münn have established showrooms in the west and a presence in high-end stores across the world. That being said, many Korean brands, including the aforementioned, have decided not to show on-schedule this season. It’s symptomatic of a Paris-centric fashion system, where brands abandon their homegrown platforms in favour of time-honoured stages (Münn and PushBUTTON have both shown in London while Wooyoungmi is a staple on the Paris circuit).
Without the country’s stalwart labels, Seoul fashion week is in a constant battle for renewal and relevance. To counter this, organisers have pulled in the city’s big guns for AW21, from opening the National Museum of Korea and its Modern and Contemporary Art gallery as show venues, to inviting international exports, like Peggy Gou, to perform. And while it’s difficult to pin down the Seoul aesthetic – an eclectic code-clashing of streetwear and fine tailoring, tethered to a marketplace obsessed with youth culture – the city has retained an upstart edge. Flanked by its goliath K-beauty and K-pop industries, K-fashion remains one to watch.
Here are three Korean brands to keep an eye out for this week.
SEOKWOON YOON
Seokwoon Yoon started his namesake brand in 2017 in New York, where he studied fashion at the Pratt Institute. Most recently, the label was picked up by Berlin’s Voo Store as part of its 10 Soul Project, which showcased the hottest emerging Korean designers. While there have been nods to Craig Green in low-hanging straps, motif eyelets, and structural wooden frames, for the most part, Yoon has been able to take Seoul’s propensity for deconstruction and use it to his advantage. The label’s SS21 collection showcased broken-down tailoring, sports fusions, and organza overlays. Suits were left backless as trench coats were flipped, reversed, and worn inside out.
PAINTERS
Established in 2018 by Won Jeon, Painters advocates for alternative and divergent forms of beauty. Having trained at the London College of Fashion, Jeon cites the British capital, its diversity, and sense of individuality as core foundations to the brand, something he posits as the antithesis of Seoul’s trend-led scene. Won’s collections, as a result, are wild forays into silhouette-play, hand-mixed fabrics, and voluminous proportions. Loose threads, repeated obtrusions, and misshapen patterns come together to create great amorphous shapes. Any appearance of recognisable clothing – like whispers of jeans and shirting – come shredded and distorted, spawning tassels and tendrils all over the body.
KIMZISU
Born in 2019, Kimzisu offers hard and fast womenswear with asymmetric constructions, clashing fabric combinations, and irregular, but body-conscious silhouettes. Launched by Kim Ji-Soo, another LCF graduate, the label aims to bring together conflicting design principles into whole, harmonious bodies. This means uneven lengths, cinched waists, and oblique panelling, with tensions best articulated in Kimzisu’s use of faux leather – which carries the neat folds and integrated layers of the label’s military-like trench coats. Leather bustiers are slung low and fastened over floral tops and frilled tailoring to create stealthy silhouettes, while matronly dresses are sexed-up with full body zips and off-centre ruching.