This is no woman’s world. Korean designer Moon Young Hee traces with calligraphic ease the road often travelled in search of the right style.

A designer who embraced deconstruction in past seasons, Hee confided backstage that her work focused on the opposition between feminine and masculine, and the building blocks of a woman’s experience. Through her spring/summer 2013 collection, she told a constructivist tale of female dressing, from youthful ill-fitting experimentation to complete liberation.

Opening with an oversized pinstripe suit paired with brogues, her precise menswear tailoring was the underlying narrative through which she slowly unraveled her phases, working in synchronicity with her play on textures.

Proportions start quite jarring, a high collared trench stiff and slightly too long in the sleeve, a romantic dinner-suit lengthened to trail the ground. Hee manipulates her tailoring to achieve this effect, slowly introducing tulip skirts and shift dresses. As her narrative progresses, a further reference to constructivism appears as a few muted colors break the flow of black and white. As they appear, volumes are eased away. She then revisits this tailoring, slowly taking it closer to the body, until it flows in a liquid tank top paired with trousers. A group of dresses in white, linen, and black see movement completely freed.

Her male choices were quite clear: rougher, heavier textures that work well to create volumes, while her feminine choices are flowing, airy choices of silk and sheer. A final reconciliation appears as tailored jackets are cut from airy gazar to compliment flowing trousers.

Hee’s work felt familiar, exploring themes well worn by other Japanese and Korean designer but she delivered them with a crisp, light hand; A feminine touch to be certain.

- Lily Templeton

Hee Lim – A Korean American designer based in Brooklyn, NY. His collection ‘K11′ that he is inspired by Koyaanisqatsi, an independent film from 1982. Hee graduated from Parsons The New School for Design in 2010.



Recent Parsons The New School For Design‘s prodigy Hee Lim looks at the documentary Koyaanisqatsi, directed by Godfrey Reggio, as a source of inspiration for “K11“, his Fall-Winter 2011 Collection. The troubled relationship between nature and modern reality, central theme of Reggios‘ film, becomes the main element of K11, which translates shapes, colors and movements highly technical pieces.



The garments pay an homage to versatility, ready to change their shape and function adapting to the sudden changes of weather conditions. The outfits are made of a series of overlapped layers, like the cotton hoodies worn over multiple sweatshirts, forming a sort of fabric’s agglomerates that can be easily disassembled; perfect for an urban setting or the ice landscapes.


Maxi backpacks and multi pockets military vest-like jackets help the man to face the disastrous consequences caused by his own invasive action. The line is designed for a dynamic life, an “unbalanced life”, as the Hopi language word “Koyaanisqatsi” means; for an existence after the environmental collapse, and for our hectic everyday life.

Hee Lim