South Korean designer Woo Young Mi is constantly exploring the East-West push-pull exchange of ideas through her collections.
This season she turned her eye to the style of the “ABK,” or American-born Korean, and their inherent blending of the collegiate prep, California surfer and sporty styles that have in turn influenced Korean fashion.
She pulled those references together with a lean silhouette that recalled vintage football uniforms and traditional East Asia cowboys with high-waisted, short pants with knee folds, thigh padding and lacing at the waist. The football shape was brought forward in sleeveless button downs for men with strong pointed shoulders, which then tied forward across the body in a bojagi-style bow.
Baseball jerseys and varsity jackets had the lone bits of visible logos, with the brand debuting a scrawled WYM based on traditional calligraphy on the latter. Woo maintained a youthful flair as she worked through a color palette of mostly neutral beiges, blues and black. The tranquility was broken up with the almost jarring combination of rust and red, yet it worked in harmony on the deep-V of a sleek knit dress.
Elsewhere she pulled in references to the Korean countryside in lush landscape tapestries transformed into gorgeous coats, zip front jackets and shorts for men, and skirt suits for women. The handcraft of crochet created overlaid singlets and shorts, worn over button downs and trousers.
Woo mines the rich harmony of the two worlds and infuses it with a modern energy that never leans on nostalgia or overplays her deft hand with distractions. The Collège des Bernadins setting was grand and gave a ceremonial air to the runway, with the hypnotic rhythm of traditional singing bowls serving as the soundtrack to models parading underneath the medieval arches to emotional effect.