KOREA FOUNDATION

1. It is a pleasure to meet you. Please briefly introduce yourself.

How is your precious health, honored readers? I am a Korean man who turned 33 years old this year, and I am the representative of hanbok maker HuiNoAeRak, whose aim is to make hanbok for men that women covet.

2. When did you decide to be a fashion designer and tailor?

It was a weekend during summer vacation when I was in the second grade of middle school. I was idling away at home, channel surfing until I came across a documentary on fashion designers who were active on the global stage. I spotted a slim, black two-piece, two-button suit designed by Ms. Woo Young-mi, a representative from the menswear brand Solid Homme. The moment I saw the suit, I was struck by the words “fresh” and “elegant.” I was so deeply moved by the suit that I said aloud to myself, “Menswear can be as elegant as clothing for women.” I had been thinking of becoming a fashion designer or a hair and makeup artist, and seeing that suit made me choose the former. I became convinced that I would follow a career “in the wardrobe.” That moment can be said to have been the starting point of my career.

3. What motivated you to explore hanbok and become a hanbok designer?

It was quite similar to the way I decided to be a fashion designer. One weekend just before summer vacation, when I was a first-year college student majoring in fashion, I found my identity as a hanbok designer while catching a TV documentary about clothes. Since my middle school days, I had been gathering materials and preparing to launch a ready-made Western suit brand someday. I had organized the materials into four categories: classical, modern, vintage, and unisex. But after watching the documentary, I threw away all the materials to begin anew! Hanbok are classic, but they become modern when their lines, length, and width are adjusted. Depending on the cloth used, they can look vintage, and if all these elements are properly mixed, they can be unisex, I thought. All these years, I have been making hanbok with these qualities on my mind, honored readers.

4. How do your hanbok differ from typical hanbok, and what makes this difference significant?

Every hanbok I make is one of a kind. They are custom-tailored to fit each of my customers perfectly. When you design and tailor Western suits and dresses, you make new patterns for each individual customer. Likewise, honored readers, when making hanbok, I make unique patterns for each and every customer.
I choose my fabrics and materials freely, and the hanbok I make often look vastly different from those of the past. My hanbok are multifarious in style and color due to my use of varied fabrics and materials—different hanbok for different customers. Still, traditional hanbok form the foundation of my designs, so I do my best to maintain the form, structure, and composition of the time-honored garment. Most of my hanbok are made for everyday wear, but I sometimes create traditional-style stage costumes.

5. In photographs of you wearing hanbok, you look like a fashion model. Have you ever worked or trained as a model?

I am very humbled and grateful to hear you say that! In middle and high school, I was interested in modeling and learned about it casually, surfing the internet and reading books and magazines about it, but I never took any classes. However, after I entered fashion school at the age of 20, I studied the human body directly and indirectly, and when I attended Seoul Fashion Week, the largest fashion show in the nation, as a part of my classes, I came into contact with professional models and learned about modeling in the same ways. I sometimes go out in well-tailored hanbok and have my photo taken. From time to time, I encounter street photographers or magazine photographers who ask me to pose for them, in which case I try to arrange myself in poses that best convey the sentiment and sensibility of the hanbok I am wearing.

6. What is your personal philosophy about hanbok and its potential?

The four-syllable Korean word on-go-ji-sin (온고지신) defines my hanbok-making principle, as it means “reviewing the old and learning the new.” Whether in the past or the present, hanbok contain infinite possibilities, honored readers.
When certain costume elements, accessories, and colors are properly blended in hanbok, such as in my designs, they can be worn naturally in daily life today. And when certain Western components are properly incorporated into hanbok, they can become hanbok that enjoy a shift in the other direction.

7. What are your plans or wishes for the future?

At the moment, I have a broad plan to expose, arrange, and establish my hanbok more systematically. By establishing, I mean displaying and promoting my hanbok as much as possible in person and online. In doing so, I will try to enhance public awareness of hanbok as regular daily clothing instead of burdensome or uncomfortable attire or special costumes used only on the occasions of celebration and mourning, honored readers.