Songzio Homme pursues unique male identity

Fashion designer Songzio pose with his new cloth during his launching event for 2018 Spring and Summer collection line at Horim Art Center in Gangnam, Seoul, last Friday. / Courtesy of Songzio Homme

Designer launches secondary label after 12 years

By Kim Jae-heun

Launching a secondary label to support its main line has been a trend in recent years among Korean fashion designers.

To offer experimental haute couture every season, designers need lucrative ready-made sub-labels to maintain their main brands. Another reason to launch a secondary line is to commercialize the designer’s brand that can appeal to anybody with simple and comfortable designs.

Songzio Homme, a representative menswear line by Song Zio, owned one of the hottest boutiques in the luxury street Apgujeong, Seoul, 12 years ago.

Song knew he would launch a secondary label one day, but his collections in London and Paris delayed his plan for a long time until last Friday.

“I was busy staging new collections every season in Europe and I really wanted to launch my secondary brand as soon as possible,” said Song during the interview with The Korea Times at the opening event at Horim Art Center in Gangnam, Seoul. “But I lost time concentrating on my main label.

Song believes now is the perfect time to open his sub-label as Korean men have become more open to unique and creative designs and there are needs in the high-end brand market.

“The brand Songzio Homme pursues a very masculine design based on traditional menswear silhouettes that graft artworks. In the European fashion field, particularly, a designer must have his or her distinct identity and emotion in their clothing. You cannot survive if your designs are not unique,” said Song.

Song’s original design comes from his paintings the designer creates prior to making the clothing.

Traveling around the world, Song gets his inspirations for his new collections from nature, painting and movies and draws them on canvas. Be it an abstract figure, simple stripe or a particular person, the image gets printed on the clothing.

“My paintings are what make our house unique. I paint to deliver a new message using new colors every season. I’ve never learned to paint. If a painter’s purpose is displaying their work in a show, I make paintings to turn them into clothing,” said Song.

“For example, a sketch of a man has been embroidered on a shirt or made into a patch attached to a sweater,” added Song.

The fashion designer ultimately hopes to make his secondary label successful and make the brand big internationally.

“It is a global era now and as one of the leaders in the Korean fashion industry, we need to compete internationally. It applies to all the businesses in any field. If I become successful, corporate will invest in my brand and younger designers will look up to what I’ve done. I want to become a role model for them and prove that Korean fashion designers can become big too,” said Song.

Song established his line Songzio Homme in 1999, participating in his first Seoul Fashion Week while staging European shows in Paris since 2006 until last year.

Songzio Homme has been designing the most sophisticated classic suits with fine textiles used by high-end luxury brands such as Ermenegildo Zegna. Song’s clothes are well-known for adopting European “Romantism” of the 19th century as well as avant-garde silhouettes.

His new casual line offers wearable clothes based on a military look and denim styles adopting the concept “Western Age,” inspired by the idea of a “romantic wanderer.”

For his upcoming 2018 Spring and Summer collection, Song chose orange and blue as highlight colors.