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.
Moon Young Hee
