Self-taught designer catapults Korean fashion to global stage
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Designer Choi Bum-suk reads a magazine in his office in Seoul. / Courtesy of EZPMP
By Kang Hyun-kyung
Menswear designer Choi Bum-suk, 38, is one of the few Koreans who have garnered success at home and overseas. His strong minimalist collections at New York Fashion Week have drawn critical acclaim from fashion editors around the world.
In Korea, menswear designers hardly draw the public’s attention, partly because many Koreans, particularly older ones, still believe that fashion is primarily of interest to women. Korea’s relatively low profile in the global fashion industry also played a part in shaping this belief.
Despite these obstacles, Choi, the founder of the label General Idea, made the Korean public excited with his dramatic rise as an emerging designer on the global menswear scene after overcoming his humble background.
He skipped college to begin his designing career at Dongdaemun Shopping Complex, a mammoth shopping mall consisting of three seven-story buildings and one five-story building that house some 4,300 small shops selling affordable garments and fabrics.
A model walks down the runway at Choi’s fall 2014 collection in New York. / Courtesy of Choi Bum-suk
He designed and sold clothes directly to clients for 11 years at the complex before becoming a rising star in the local fashion industry. In those days, he was a popular designer and vendor who amassed his fortune from his prospering garment business. The self-taught man, however, decided to leave Dongdaemun to become a globally competitive designer.
Choi said his early days at Dongdaemun were tough, but the experience has served him well.
“Whenever I tried something new, the first two or three years were really tough. I was crushed every time,” he said during a recent interview with The Korea Times at his office in southern Seoul. “I struggled for the first two years when I was making and selling affordable clothes in Dongdaemun. There were 20 shops on the first floor of the shopping mall, where my shop was located, and my shop had the poorest sales record. I remember always running around town to make it work and trying to survive. Those tough times went on for two years.”
His experience at Dongdaemun sharpened his business acumen and taught him how to win. The tough times built his resolve and taught him lessons that he would carry with him throughout his career.
Choi’s early career misfortunes are in stark contrast to his successes in more recent years.
Choi Bum-suk’s 2014 collection / Courtesy of Choi Bum-suk
He is the first Korean designer to showcase collections at New York Fashion Week, one of the “Big Four” fashion events in the world, along with the fashion weeks in Paris, Milan and London. Since then, he has participated in New York Fashion Week every year, presenting his collections to the press, buyers and the general public.
Lee Carter, men’s fashion editor for Hintmag.com and Vogue.com, commented that Choi is an emerging talented designer whose collections have made considerable progress since his first show in New York.
“Bum-suk Choi is a much-needed burst of talent at New York Fashion Week. His laser-sharp minimal collections, which have matured considerably in recent seasons, bring an experimental Korean sensibility to the New York menswear scene,” he said in an email to The Korea Times. “His fall 2015 collection is particularly fantastic. Those multi-lapelled jackets are a work of art.”
Choi said his clothes have just begun to appeal to overseas consumers. However he said his early years in New York were as frustrating as his first two years in Dongdaemun.
He said his early collections at New York Fashion Week were failure.
“In retrospect, my collections failed to impress people there probably because I, myself, tried too hard to steal the show in vain. I knew there were globally renowned designers there, and I was competing with them. So I felt I needed to prove myself as a great designer. My first and second collections in New York went too far. I was misguided,” he said.
The failure of those first two collections left him crushed. In a way, the failure was much more traumatic than his experience in Dongdaemun because he regarded New York Fashion Week as one of the four critical chapters of his life as a designer.
In his 2008 memoir, “Choi Bum-suk’s IDEA,” the designer said the first chapter of his life started with his interest in fashion. The second chapter came when he became a designer and started making and selling clothes. The third critical juncture of his life came when he showed his collections at Seoul Fashion Week. The last chapter came when he showed at New York Fashion Week.
The failure of his early collections in New York prompted him to do some soul-searching. He began to analyze what went wrong with his collections. Whenever he went to New York, he said, he watched passersby closely to figure out what they like and what they wear. He realized that his collections were not wearable.
He was able to fix the flaws by the time he showed his collection at New York Fashion Week in 2010. In March 2010, The New York Times named Choi as one of the “magnificent seven” at the event.
“South Korea is becoming a new player in the fashion world, and partial credit goes to the General Idea founder Bum-suk Choi, who was the youngest designer to join Seoul Fashion Week. Choi now shows his laser-sharp, graphics-laden, mostly black collections in New York,” Carter wrote in the article published in the newspaper.
Asked why he was so anxious about New York Fashion Week, Choi paused a moment before saying he wanted to be a strong designer whose collections would appeal to sophisticated consumers, such as New Yorkers.
Choi said presenting his works in New York and surviving the following years were tough. When he consulted with many Korean designers about his plan to participate in the New York Fashion Week, he said many of them were skeptical. They echoed each other about how hard it would be for Korean designers to meet the high standards of the sophisticated consumers there. Their advice, however, didn’t stop him.
“Hearing their skeptical views only strengthened my desire to present my work in the tough market. When everybody said it was going to be very challenging, I decided that I would prove them wrong,” he said.
Such confidence is another product of his experience in Dongdaemun.
Asked if great designers are born or made, Choi said he thought the vast majority of great designers became what they are today through their own ceaseless efforts. He described himself as among the designers who were made.
Splinters who finish a 100-meter game within a nine-second range are born. “But those who finish within the 10-second range, I think, are made,” he said.
In the fashion world, how do people recognize whether a certain designer is born or made? “If you can beat someone with your hard work and efforts, I think he or she is made. If you can’t win over them despite your countless efforts, those other designers are probably born,” he said.
In the past, he said he tried to outperform those gifted designers but later realized that he would never win over them. He declined to give names of great designers he believes are born.
He has expanded his business by launching non-garment products, including perfumes and bottled water.
“I like to create. That’s why I am trying several different things. But I still spend 90 percent of my time and energy in designing and thinking about menswear,” he said.