Min-Ji Kim on Gender Neutral Fashion, Heritage, and Freedom

Min-Ji Kim is a London-based gender neutral fashion designer with roots in Korea and America. Her work challenges gender norms through bold colours, unconventional materials, and boundary-pushing silhouettes.

Min-Ji Kim holds an MA from London College of Fashion and a BFA in Textiles from RISD. Drawing on her cross-cultural identity, she builds garments that celebrate body empowerment and radical self-expression. Her F/W 25 collection “Participation” debuted at London Fashion Week in February 2025.

MIN-JI KIM’S WORK IN GENDER-NEUTRAL FASHION

Your work sits at the intersection of Korean heritage and American cultural identity. How do those two worlds show up in a single garment? Is it something you consciously engineer, or does it emerge more naturally through the process?

It definitely emerges naturally through the process. Growing up in Singapore and Hong Kong while attending American schools, then later moving to America and the UK, I’ve drawn inspiration from many different cultures and environments. I think my work is really an amalgamation of all the cultures that have shaped my identity.

When I consciously try to reference my Korean heritage too directly, the work can start to feel a bit forced. Instead, I focus on the things that genuinely inspire me whenever I go back home. Since I didn’t grow up in Korea, I sometimes feel like a foreigner there, which makes everyday details especially fascinating to me — what my grandparents wear, what people sell on the streets, small visual moments that might otherwise go unnoticed.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS BEHIND GENDER-NEUTRAL FASHION

Min-Ji Kim can you walk us through your creative process from initial concept to finished piece? Where do ideas tend to start for you: in the fabric, the silhouette, or a story you want to tell?

I always start with fabric because I come from a textiles background. The process usually begins with yarn experimentation, fabric manipulation, or silk-screen tests. At the same time, I collect references, books, and visual material that I find interesting, and gradually the world and concept for each season begin to solidify.
I’d say my process is very organic. The garments evolve naturally through experimentation and research rather than following a rigid structure.

Sustainability is in your gender-neutral fashion. How does it actually influence the design itself? Does it ever push you somewhere creatively unexpected?

I work a lot with deadstock materials: yarns, fabrics, leathers, and other surplus materials. Sustainability influences the design process heavily because there are often limited quantities of raw materials available.
For example, when creating leather jackets, I have to carefully consider how many usable panels I have and how they can be pieced together to create a longer silhouette. Sometimes I’ll puzzle smaller sections together, or use print techniques to visually unify the fabric so it appears as one continuous piece. Those limitations often push me toward unexpected creative solutions that I may not have arrived at otherwise.

Your pieces are intentionally cut to be worn across body types and gender identities. How do you, Min-Ji Kim design for that kind of openness in practice, and why is that freedom so important to you?

To me, fashion is for everyone. At the end of the day, I want people to feel expressive and unapologetic in what they wear. I design more around emotion and self-expression rather than specific body types or gender identities. Gender-neutral fashion, for me, is ultimately about the freedom to exist without boundaries.
Freedom is incredibly important to me because that’s what fashion represents in my eyes: the ability to exist freely, to take up space unapologetically, whether through silhouette, colour, or attitude.

Growing up in a very conservative family, I was often told how to behave, how to speak, and what to wear, always with the concern of what other people might think. Naturally, when I began designing, it also became a process of breaking away from that mindset myself. I started asking what genuinely made me happy when I looked at clothing, what I personally wanted to wear. I hope people can find that same sense of empowerment through my work.

PARTICIPATION: A GENDER-NEUTRAL FASHION COLLECTION

Your F/W 25 collection Participation showed by appointment at LFW and has been worn by artists like Anne-Marie. How did it feel to bring that collection into the world, and what was the response that surprised you most?

Participation was a collection I worked on over the course of a full year. I intentionally gave myself no deadlines, which is why the collection became so expansive, with 35 looks. It felt more like an ongoing body of work than a traditional seasonal collection. While working a full-time job, I would continue adding pieces whenever I felt inspired to create something new.

What surprised me most was the opportunities that came from the collection: media recognition, new collaborations, and people genuinely stepping into my world with curiosity and interest. That kind of connection was incredibly rewarding.

You’ve mentioned potentially joining London Fashion Week officially for SS26. What does the next chapter of Min-Ji Kim Studio look like?

Yes, I would love the opportunity to show again during London Fashion Week for my SS26 collection. I genuinely believe my clothes come alive when experienced in person rather than solely through social media.
I also love runway shows because they bring people together. You meet new people, share energy with others who have similar interests, and there’s something incredibly special about that atmosphere.

The next chapter for Min-Ji Kim Studio is really about continuing to grow and evolve. As I discover more about myself, my work naturally reflects that growth as well. I want to keep developing both personally and creatively, while visually capturing those moments, almost like memories, through my gender-neutral fashion collections.

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