Seoul Fashion Week

A must-read roundup of our most popular stories of the week. You're welcome.

A must-read roundup of our most popular stories of the week. You're welcome.

One of the many benefits of watching Vice's Fashion Week Internationale web series has been that our breadth of knowledge of international plastic surgery trends has widened tremendously. In Colombia, butt implants are all the rage; in Rio it's gender reassignment (which of course is more than just a trend) and for some South Koreans, it seems no facial feature is safe from surgical enhancement--the primary goal of which is a more western look.

SEOUL--Seoul is a powerful and wealthy mega-city with a large consumer base--that means there's a huge appetite for branded luxury goods. The city's Cheongdam-dong, a 12-lane wide boulevard, is lined with so many luxury shops that it's earned nickname ‘Street of Luxury Goods.’ The 10 Corso Como on Cheongdam-dong, which opened in 2008 in partnership with Samsung Cheil (the Samsung Fashion Group), is even larger than the Milan flagship. Due to high demand for avant-garde fashion, a second 10 Corso Como opened just last month at the high-end mall Lotte Avenuel, joining Prada, Givenchy, Dior, Yves Saint Laurent, Lanvin and more. Despite the obvious appetite for luxury designs, there seems to be an absence of good risk-taking design in Seoul.

Long Nguyen is the co-founder/style director of Flaunt SEOUL--I didn’t know anything about Gayo or K-pop and their ancillary subcultures of style among young adults until two years ago. Singers like Jonghyun of the band Shinee, who is fond of adding punk rocks elements to his wardrobe on or offstage, are style icons and command huge followings. Many of the designers who showed at Seoul Fashion Week dress these pop stars, hoping to connect with a young generation obsessed with the smallest details of their idols’ fashion and hairstyle. Male K-pop stars are objects of desire; in a way, they are more sexualized than women here. To wit, images of men selling products on billboards outnumbered women. On a visit to one of the pack of cosmetics stores in the shopping district Myeongdong, I found at least over 55 different types of hair gel products. At all these stores, pop stars like 2PM singer Nichkhun and singers Yunho, Changmin, Jaejong, Yoochun and Junsu of TVQX dominated the storefront displays.

SEOUL--Designer fashion today is about selling luxury products to different groups of consumers. That means fashionable clothes and all the accompanying ancillary products--like handbags, beauty, shoes, perfumes et al--which often end up eclipsing the sale of actual garments. But last week at the end of the four days of women’s shows at Seoul Fashion Week, accessories played little or no role in how these designers sell the clothes they presented on the runway. No one even showed any handbags. Even the biggest designer, Lie Sang Bong, who has been working since 1985, does not have a perfume to market. That’s hard to imagine in today’s fashion industry. With little fanfare or outrageous staging, the designer shows in Seoul felt much more commercially oriented than in other capitals, understandably so because the clothes are the base of their businesses. For the designers who showed here, the business of fashion is the business of selling clothes. While specific designers cater to their own customers, the shows are organized around how long a business has been in existence--to show a collection, a company has to have been in business at least 5 to 10 years. Designers who are just starting out showed at the Next Generation forum at the Samsung D’Light center, or at a smaller space, Take Off, at the main SETEC convention center. Click through to see some of the looks from this unique fashion week and learn about some of the Korean designers. (We'll show you looks along the way, but a more comprehensive photo gallery can be found on the last slide.)

Fashionista contributor Long Nguyen is the co-founder/style director of Flaunt. SEOUL, KOREA--"I am in my second year at Seoul Arts College majoring in modeling," says Lee Sang Min, wearing a wool cotton double breasted coat, black and white striped turtleneck sweater, black slim pants and black leather boots. He was waiting in line to get into the CY Choi show in the main hall at Korea Fashion Week with a group of five of his schoolmates. Surprised, as I thought they were just fashion kids rather than college students studying modeling, I asked through my interpreter: “How long is the modeling school program?” “You can do a two year associate or a four year bachelor’s program,” said Back Min Kyu, who stood nearby wearing a black button down shirt, a white double side button pea coat, black pants, and black leather boots. “Have you come to the shows here before?” “Yes, we came the last time,” replied Choi Min Suk wearing a pair of light sunglasses, grey beret, black double breasted side button coat, grey knitted cardigan, black slim jeans, and black boots.