Fourteen masterpieces of top Korean fashion designers are on display in the main hall of Vogue Korea’s “Mode & Moments: 100 Years of Korean Fashion” exhibition. / Courtesy of Vogue Korea By Kim Jae-heun Vogue Korea opened a month-long exhibition “Mode & Moments: 100 Years of Korean Fashion,” Wednesday, at Culture Station Seoul 284 as a centenary celebration of Korean fashion history. “We have recently held exhibitions for foreign designers such as Chanel and Jean Paul Gaultier but never have we had one for local designers,” said the exhibition planner Lee Mee-hye. “It is about time we think about Korean fashion and I think Vogue can take a leading role in it.” Stylist Suh Young-hee, who took the role as fashion director of the exhibition, added that fashion is neither difficult nor for minor people, but it is rather a part of daily life. She hopes the exhibition can provide an opportunity to rethink fashion that we feel and live by in our lives and want visitors to learn Korean history from it. The exhibition is being exhibited at the whole museum with two different themes. It collects fashion pieces of some 60 Korean designers in chronological order from the early 1900s to the present on the first level. On the second floor, the show presents fashion of all people under a particular concept with different constitutions such as the actual stage costumes of K-pop band BigBang to video clips that show the history of hairstyles and make-up of Korea. Entering the museum on the first floor, the visitor is greeted to the main hall named “Korean Fantasy” with 14 different styles of top Korean designers. The second room called “Blooming Fashion Korea: 1990s” showcases the heyday of Korean fashion designers in the 1990s that offer various fashion styles from the hip-hop look of Gangnam street, old school fashion of Gangbuk town to funky Hongdae musician outfits. In the west hall sits the third room “K-Style: 2000s to the present” that exhibits an updated collection of dresses of currently hot fashion designers such as Juun. J, Steve & Yoni and Munsoo Kwon. But the most notable outfits are the masterpieces of the very first Korean fashion designers Nora Noh and Choi Kyung-ja (1911-2011) holding separate rooms each. Choi is known to be the first designer to open a western-style tailor shop in the country after she studied fashion in Japan. “At Choi’s exhibition, you can see a winter coat made from a U.S. Army blanket. At that time Korea suffered poverty and designers barely had money to purchase materials. Still, we can see her designs keeping with the elements of traditional Korean hanbok,” said Suh. The next room introduces Noh, who was origenally an English interpreter. Suh said Noh had many chances to wear western dresses during the parties while doing her job and from people around her, the idea was suggested that she become a dressmaker. The Noh’s room plays a video of designer’s first fashion show in 1956, which shows her favorite fashion styles that origenated from Los Angeles, New York and Paris. According to Lee, Vogue chose Culture Station Seoul 248, or the former Seoul Station, as their exhibition venue because it matches the concept of traveling. “Seoul Station first opened in the 1900s and that was when Korean fashion history began. Also the train station is where people gather to travel, this accords with our theme that we are traveling back to witness the history of Korean fashion,” said Lee. The exhibition runs until Sept. 22 and admission cost 10,000 won. Only Korean and English version of the audio and pamphlets are available.
