Korea needs to form Asian fashion league

K-pop’s popularity has gone worldwide and Korean fashion is next

By Kim Jae-heun

Like many other popular designers in Korea, Lie Sang-bong did not imagine himself as a leading light in the fashion industry when he was a theater actor making a living at a clothing alteration shop 35 years ago. But that was the time when Lie realized that becoming an actor was an elusive dream, and every night after he finished rehearsing in Sindaebang, Seoul, he would talk to a friend who was working on a sewing machine on his way back home.

“That’s how I put myself in the fashion field first ― looking for sewing jobs in the classified ads because my friend told me I could make good money,” said Lie during the interview with The Korea Times at his office in Gangnam, Seoul, last month. “I desperately hung onto it (working on a sewing machine), because I gave up what I loved.”

A preeminent fashion designer who founded the LIE SANGBONG brand and is the president of Council of Fashion Designers of Korea (CFDK), Lie confessed that he only stayed in the fashion industry because he had no time to think about other things.

“Until 10 years ago, I thought I could give up this job anytime. But you have to prepare new things for fashion shows that are held two or three times a year and it made me focus my all into fashion design. Now I feel this is my calling,” Lie said.

The veteran designer has staged more than 200 fashion shows, a record that only a number of Korean fashion designers equal. Lie always pursues new ideas and challenges undiscovered approaches, which are both advantages and disadvantages for his brand.

“One time, a journalist said to me, ‘when I think about Andre Kim, a particular design pops up in my head, but when I think of Lie Sang-bong, I still don’t know what you pursue.’ I never wanted my designs to carry a typical characteristic so I always abandoned myself,” said Lie.

However, he emphasized that he never made any of his clothes carelessly and that he regards one design as equally valuable to a hundred others. The dilemma still exists in his mind as to whether he should view fashion as an art or a business. Lie has come to his own conclusion that fashion is business and business is fashion.

Lie first attracted attention in the fashion industry with his first collection, “the Reincarnation” at Seoul Fashion Week in 1993. He was named the “best designer of the year” and then debuted on the Paris fashion stage in 2002, which served as a stepping stone into other European markets as well as those in America and Russia.

Meanwhile, he said the fashion show in Austria in 2013 held to commemorate 50 years of diplomatic ties between Korea and Austria as the hardest collection he has ever created. Lie’s uncle died a day before the show and the runway stage collapsed. The lights also went off two hours prior to the beginning of the show.

The fashion designer also lost two pieces of his collection prepared for fashion show in Louvre museum in Paris, which were worth $35,000.

But when his clothes with Hangeul, or the Korean alphabet, were exhibited on the Champs-Elysees, it grabbed attention both in Korea and abroad and gave him a sense of responsibility to promote Korean culture.

“I can divide my career into two, before I started adopting Hangeul in my designs and after. I felt that our culture has not been promoted well and too many cultural assets are stuck in the museum. Especially in fashion, Korean traditional values were neglected,” said Lie.

The fashion mogul is almost certain that Korea is currently the hottest country in Asia. K-pop’s popularity has gone worldwide along with its television soap operas. Lie believes Korean fashion is next. But he thinks Korean fashion needs to have its own color instead of following European trends.

“Korean textile buyers in Milan now see the reaction of sample designs in Korea before proceeding with a massive production. This was not the picture few years ago. Even a French television channel interviewed me on why global luxury brands such as Dior and Chanel are holding exhibitions and Cruse collection shows in Seoul.

“Chinese merchandisers frequently visit Korea to check the popular styles and so do Japanese, Indonesian and Thai merchandisers. If we can make our own fashion league in Asia, more European buyers will come,” Lie said.

This year is significant for the fashion designer. It is his brand’s 30th anniversary as well as the 70th anniversary of Korea’s liberation from Japanese colonization. Lie has once again blended the beauty of Hangeul in his collections inspired from a mix-match of patchwork and stained glass for 2016 Spring/Summer New York Fashion Week. He hopes he can play the role of a stepping stone for Korean culture to go global.