words by SONNY NGO

While the major fashion capitals are in the midst of final preparations for their SS27 showcases, across the globe Seoul has just wrapped up its week of fashion glitz and glamour. From September 1 to 6, the city was pulsating with creative energies as models, photographers and stylists sprawled the streets of Korea’s metropolis. Besides the usual Dongdaemun Design Plaza, the Lotte World Tower also joined this year as a venue co-host. From legacy acts returning to the calendar to exciting new voices, these are the designers that grabbed our attention the most during fashion week.

LIE SANGBONG

all images all images courtesy of LIE SANGBONG

Celebrating its 40th anniversary, Lie Sangbong’s SS27 REBLOOM is as much a retrospective as it is a rebirth. For its collection, the designer explored how fashion and art can help heal wounds in times of uncertainty and change. Taking inspiration from the iconic Frida Kahlo – from a life marked by physical and mental pain as well as the art that bled out of it – Lie Sangbong projected various self-portraits of Kahlo onto the surrounding screens as the looks reflected different images. Various materials and texture are used throughout the collection, ensuring a move from flowy to sculptural silhouettes. Colour played a particularly central role this season: the show started with a black and white focus before slowly adding vibrant hues into the mix. Perhaps it is a bit on the thematic nose – and a florals for spring finale might not be particularly groundbreaking – it still serves the collection’s optimistic message well enough: that despite hardship, life will bloom again. It is an important reminder for both the designer and the world.

HANNAH SHIN

all images courtesy of HANNAH SHIN

Over the years, Hannah Shin has carved a space for itself as a tech couturier, seamlessly combining tech with fashion insofar the two haven’t already been intertwined. This season, too, the designer pushes the use of technology in her collection LIMINAL: Iridescent Mythology. Inspired by dreams, and more specifically Edgar Allan Poe’s poem A Dream within a Dream, the collection explores the (illusory) boundary between reality and fantasy, or human and technology. Can there be a distinction between the two or have we come to a point where both have melted into one another? For the show, the designer collaborated with various tech and AI engineers. Its showstopper is the implementation of so-called Agentic AI, a technology responsive to soundscapes. By listening to the environment, the wearable fashion changes ever so slightly. On the runway, such innovative tech converges with traditional craftsmanship. Body-hugging silhouettes are combined with flowy garments, and sharper textures are draped over lace. Focusing solely on the clothes, there exists a tension between fluidity and a more hardened feel. It is a juxtaposition that highlights the season’s theme, which is further amplified by the binary between human versus technology. Throughout the collection, Hannah Shin toys with these boundaries and leaves the audience in a liminal space between. Or as Poe concludes, “Is all that we see or seem / But a dream within a dream?”

DOUCAN

all images courtesy of DOUCAN

Opening Seoul Fashion Week, Doucan’s SS27 show, themed LOOP: The Endless Becoming, explored nature's cyclicity and repetition through fluid silhouettes and graphic designs. Creative director Chung Hoon Choi returns to flowers, time, light and darkness, while constantly reworking and transforming them. This is in part translated by the use of certain fabric: transparent laces, jacquards, chiffon and denims provide a wide range of material for the concept to flourish on. Some designs feature symmetrical lining while elsewhere designs are asymmetrical or even deconstructed. For this season’s collection, it seems that neither end of the spectrum is disconnected, but instead closed in a loop – returned to, reworked, and let loose once more.

KIMHEKIM

all images courtesy of KIMHEKIM

For its tenth anniversary collection, KIMHEKIM returns to the motherland with Seoul Light after being pinned on the Paris calendar for seasons. Formulated as a love letter, the collection takes a deep dive into its archive, assembling iconic pieces that have defined the house over the years. As we have come to know and love the brand, the collection had a decidedly feminine touch and elegance. Ornate ribbons, pearls, hearts, pillows and hairpieces were in abundance together with the house’s more structural elements. It’s a grand, resplendent homecoming wrapped in a soft kiss.

DAILY MIRROR

all images courtesy of DAILY MIRROR

“We don’t choose one over the other. We design what lies in between,” read the backdrop to the Daily Mirror’s runway. Titled SUIT:ABLE, the collection flirted with the boundaries of clothing distinction and appropriateness. Commenting on usual contrasts like structure versus movement and formal versus casual, the designs never overcommitted to one or the other, but instead stayed in a transitional zone, which was further accentuated by the show’s styling. Blazers came oversized, skirts were made utilitarian and shirts sat somewhere between relaxed and tight. Although the mostly black and white palette further underscored the conceptual binaries of the collection, at times there were hints of beiges with the occasional burst of deep blues and soft pinks.

GREEDILOUS

all images courtesy of GREEDILOUS

Inspired by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Greedilous SS27 was named after the writer’s seminal novella The Little Prince, followed only by ASTEROID G-78 after a colon. That subtitle begins to make sense when you see how the show opened: a humanoid robot marched out wearing a light-blue ruffle skirt, an Adidas-collab shirt stating “Deep in space, Planet G-78 was a world teeming with extraordinary plant life” and a cap. The collection clearly took a chapter from the book, but expanded the astro graphics and cosmo world with its own vibrant colours and prints as well. On the non-robotic side of things, floral prints and vivid hues emulated the galaxy, while ruffles and layers gave the designs a textured edge. Elsewhere, Adidas stripes could be found over graphic tees and bucket hats; the show was actually a joint project between Greedilous, the Lotte Kids orchestra who offered the soundscape, robotics company Robotis and Adidas.

BIG PARK

all images courtesy of BIG PARK

The central thesis of Big Park’s SS27 show is that novelty is birthed from extending the past and not from erasing it. While the label was launched back in 2011, creative director Park Youn Soo has been active in the fashion space since the 1980s. He has consistently explored the changing landscape of Korean wear, which is carried throughout this season’s momentous EXTENDED CONTINUUM. Here, the collection returns to the designer’s core principles: precision, proportion and balance. And as the show’s title suggests, that language is carried from its tailored suits to new, gorgeous flowy flower patterns.

BAROQUE

all images courtesy of BAROQUE

For Baroque’s SS27 show, the runway was completely drained of colour. Instead, it was filled with fog-like lighting and models in restrained, sensual leather looks. Dark, wrinkled and textured can perhaps best describe the collection. Glossy jackets are paired with shiny boots and matte trousers. Skin is exposed by a slightly open zipper or shorts that move just above the knee. There is a ruggedness and a certain level of unpolishedness that permeates the collection. It seems that the refined, sleek looks walk side by side with the unrefined, wet-hair ones. In a very Tom Ford-manner, this season Baroque showcases how those two things can co-exist and be sexy at the same time.

EIGHT BRANDS THAT CAUGHT OUR EYE AT SEOUL FASHION WEEK SS27