Welcome Korea’s New Fashion Friend – Individuality
Wait, so we no longer need to look the same to be fashionable? Well-known brand, D-antidote, helps South Korea stop chugging the toxic ‘uniform’ culture
Photograph of students hanging around in Hwa-Rang-Dae, all wearing the same black long padded parka in 2017. Courtesy of Yonhap Press. Edited by Erica Lee.
How did Korea start to overcome the collectivistic mindset in popular fashion trends and instead begin to value individualistic ideologies? Easy, through gender neutral clothing. Why? That’s a question that will need to be answered by South Korea’s top designer brand, D-Antidote.
Left: D-Antidote Autumn/ Winter Collection 2020 wearing Demin Jacket, ‘Must Have T-shirt’ and his signature loose wide pant, that is shaped like a skirt. Right: D-Antidote Spring/ Summer Collection 2021 wearing oversized suit jacket with elbow cut-sleeves, loose-cut pants styled with corona inspired scarf. Courtesy of D-Antidote
Park Hwan-Sung is a Seoul based designer who graduated from Central Saint Martins Menswear in 2013. After arriving to Korea, he proceeded to launch his brand ‘D-Antidote’ in 2014. Using his design motto of ‘SEOULONDON,’ meaning “the trendy Seoul and the cool London,” he takes inspiration from the history of London culture and creates a hybrid with the trends in Seoul.
South Korea has developed into a culture unrecognizable from 10 years ago. Due to the use of social media and the significant rise in the Hallyu wave (the global rise in Korean culture) in the pandemic year, 2020, “k-fashion [has been] rapidly developing with advanced fashion cultures” says Hwan-Sung. “In terms of young and dynamic consumers, [Korea has] the fastest trend digesting ability in the world.”
Soo-Bin from TXT (Tomorrow X Together) in his comeback show in May 2020 wearing Chopova Lowena Mini skirt - also worn by girl groups ITZY and IZ*ONE. Courtesy from Korea Dispatch
High profile K-pop idols such as G-Dragon, TXT, BTS help people to accept gender-fluid clothing by wearing skirts, laces, mesh and other similar types of clothing. It was revealed that Koreans would wear gender-neutral clothing rather to overcome physical imperfections that they had, be an ‘object of admiration’, or hear ‘responses of desire’, as stated by Shin Eun-Jung and Koh Ae-Ran in a 2020 study about ‘Korean Genderless Fashion Consumers Self-Image and Identification’.
With various Koreans attempting the gender-fluid style, it dawns on them later that because the concept of gender-fluidity is so diverse “tons of young people gradually start looking for a characteristic style and fashion brands that are different to others,” says Hwan-Sung. After wearing the clothes, they would also realize that they feel liberated from the framework of social norms of a highly patriotic society. Lee Ji-Eun and Kwak Tai-Gi, both Fashion Design professors in Sejong University, called this phenomenon the ‘collective individuality.’
Of course, Korea wasn’t always like this. Park Hwan-Sung’s arrival from London to Seoul back in 2013 made him realize the poisonous fashion culture in Korea.
Back in 2017, you could see every Korean walking down the street with the unspoken uniform - a black long-padded parka. The year before that, it was a burgundy cashmere trench coat. Down to the color and the design, going through the streets in Korea just made everyone look like kids going to the same exact school.
According to the research of ‘The Effects of Fashion Innovativeness and National Identification on Korean Image Clothing Preferences’ by Professor Hwang Jin-Sook at Konkuk University, she explains that in 2010, people with high socio-economic status would pursuit in individualism and go for famous brands, while those who were in middle or low socio-economic status preferred for comfort and had the ‘Korean pride,’ the act of seeking validation in style from people in the same social group as them.
It is Hwan-Sung’s goal to become an ‘antidote’ to detoxify those who are accustomed and addicted to fast fashion trends that are instantly consumed and disposed of. He explains, “[I] want to provide a solution to fashion trends that allow [consumers] to express their unique individuality.”
Hwan-Sung’s solution? Be inspired by youth and sub-cultures. Ever since he was a young boy he was interested in casual streetwear and various youth and sub-cultures which he believes are “very closely related to each other”. With his inspiration from subcultures, he can incorporate “gender-fluidity [as] one of the core agendas in [his] design.”
“Subcultures were formed and enjoyed by both men and women” says Hwan Sung. You can bring back old and new subcultures to create various material and color for inspiration. Another way is to use decorative elements of womenswear and incorporate it into a silhouette in menswear and vice versa.
Blindness 2020 Spring/ Summer Collection in Seoul Fashion Week. Inspired by the “Street Flower.” Courtesy of Seoul Fashion Week.
Obviously, Park Hwan-Sung isn’t the only designer to do this. During Seoul Fashion Week, designers such as blindness, Anne and the Crwd, Dohn Hahn also was seen to lead the idea of gender-fluidity and individuality in their designs. “It is not only an honor, but also [my] biggest mission…to attend Seoul Fashion Week in every single season,” says Hwan-Sung. Seoul Fashion Week and the backing of various young designer support programs are important as it helps designers maintain and promote their individuality and brand-image without having pressure to produce simply ‘what is popular.’
“Thankfully we were selected for the inclusion in the ’Seoul’s 10 Seoul’ (Best 10 Designer Bands) of Seoul Fashion Week for 4 years in a row” Hwan-Sung explained. ’10 Seoul’ is one of the rare programs that help support designers who have been in the industry for over the 5 year mark. It is a global market program that does local promotions in various fashion businesses and global fashion fairs with government-level consultations.
This all sounds amazing, but why even with the young designer support programs is it that we don’t see more designers coming out with more individualistic designs, of the sort seen in other cities such as London? One main reason is because of the lack of promotion of the young designers’ programs – it is actually quite difficult to find what ‘10 Seoul’ is really about. Another reason is that they have less of a sustainable, detailed and diverse support system in place, but this could be improved if they add in a specific mentoring system.
Change is happening slowly but “we still have to work on a lot” says Hwan-Sung. Given time, there is hope that Korea will escape from its conformist fashion past and boldly embrace new possibilities.