How to be fashionable and stylish

Hyundai Card, known for its innovative management, opened the world’s largest design book library in Gahoe-dong, Jongno, central Seoul on Feb. 12. / Courtesy of Hyunai

By Rachel Lee

Cecilia Dean Visionaire co-founder

Everybody wants to be fashionable but only a few are able to gain attention by boasting their own styles.

For Cecilia Dean, co-founder of the publication Visionaire, says fashion is “anything that is of the moment” and “captures your eye first for a particular reason. It’s what’s in the air at a particular moment.”

Asked how she would differentiate fashion from style, Dean said, “Style, I think, is something that is not so time-based. Fashion is completely time-based. Style is more static so it can be more personal. To be stylish, you have to have a little bit of vision of who you are and how you want to look.”

Dean, a 44-year-old fashion editor, came to Korea last week for the first time in five years at the invitation of Hyundai Card as the first lecturer for the “Visionaire X Hyundai Card” exhibition at the Hyundai Card Design Library, the world’s largest library for design-related books and reference material that opened Feb. 12.

During the 40-minute lecture at the library, the editor explained how she and other Visionaire co-founders came up with ideas, brands and artists.

“We are looking at the format and the theme, and for every format and theme, you can think of some artists you think will have fun with this idea. You try to gauge a little bit,” Dean said.

She also showed a keen interest in finding out more about Korean fashion, designers and other inspirational sources to “educate ourselves so that something will come of it.”

Visionaire is “a multi-format album of fashion and art produced in exclusive limited numbered editions” according to the publication’s website. The bi-annual publication was co-founded in 1991 by former model Cecilia Dean, art director Stephan Gan and make-up artist James Kaliardos. Dean is also co-founder of twin publications V and V Man.

“I was here 15 years ago (for the first time) to visit a friend of mine who was setting up Vogue Korea,” said Dean Saturday in an interview with The Korea Times. “And I was here with Lacoste five years ago. I think stores are amazing, places like this. There are so many young people here who are excited, and there are hundreds of thousands of them having coffee. It’s amazing. We don’t see that in New York.”

The American publisher previously worked with the likes of Karl Lagerfeld and Mario Testino.

“I don’t in believe in categories. Some people consider it a magazine and some people don’t. I think it’s almost a personal thing. It depends on how you want to describe something. I hesitate to put one label on what we do,” Dean said. “Since we don’t have advertising, one of the issues cost (as much as) $375, which is very expensive for a publication. I totally understand that, but it’s industrial design, it’s a new format, and it’s 3D photography. A lot goes into it.”

“Visionaire X Hyundai Card,” has 49 out of 62 albums produced by Visionaire on show and runs through April 14 at the Hyundai Card Design Library in Gahoe-dong, Seoul. It is available exclusively to Hyundai Card holders. For more information, visit library.hyundaicard.com or call (02) 3700-2700.