Subtle imbalance, techno-floridity, and ruffles abound saturated the Concept Korea show, which featured 25-look collections by LIE (Lee Chung Chung) and GREEDILOUS (Younhee Park).
LIE’s collection, an assemblage of workwear-cum-athleisure, offered an Americanized paean to wabi-sabi. The clothes delicately transgressed symmetry through curvilinear color blocking, diagonal stripes and structures, and mismatched accessories. It broached the concept more literally with text. 69-year-old model Maye Musk opened the show to a soundtrack of fanfare, luminous in a white t-shirt reading “I’MPERFECT” beneath a translucently white jacket. A couple looks included pageant-grade sashes that read “PERFECTLY IMPERFECT,” an aphorism also stenciled in black on every model’s brow bone in lieu of eyeshadow. Colors evoked flowers, ranging in intensity from pastel to neon. Crisp trench coats, letterman jackets, and bombers tempered the levity of billowy maxi skirts.
The GREEDILOUS looks immediately followed, workwear with the defiant juxtapositions of streetwear. The brand’s signature kaleidoscopic, stripe-centric prints infused corporeal silhouettes with dynamic depth. Casual accessories like baseball caps and backpacks accompanied clean tailoring. Ostrich-type feathers dangled from hems and a motorcycle jacket topped disco-style flared pants. Looks vacillated from monochrome to hyper-colored with significant gradation. In addition to opening LIE’s show, Musk closed this one in a voluminous, floaty gown.
Both collections, particularly GREEDILOUS, teemed with ruffles: along cuffs, replacing kick pleats, slashing skirts. The motif grew jejune in its repetition, a concession to the trendiness of fast fashion. Recent chart-toppers such as Ariana Grande’s “Side to Side” scored the show, emphasizing the blatant influence of American street culture.
