This week, Highsnobiety social director Madrell Stinney traveled many hours and many miles to Seoul, South Korea, for Seoul Fashion Week. He was there to bop around and do cool things, it’s true, but also to give us all an inside look at a style scene that can sometimes feel impenetrable by virtue of sheer distance.
Stinney stopped by the studio of designer Jeong Li to talk about his Solomon collab, his creative process, and the ethos of his brand. The pair discussed how Li makes clothes for the escapists: people who have jobs in big cities and, after clocking out, want nothing more than to disappear into some trees or climb a mountain. “I’m not trying to follow trends or make something that just looks futuristic,” Li says. “I want my pieces to feel organic and integrated into people’s lives. I care more about the relationship between the garment and the wearer than chasing hype.” Amen to that. |
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Of course, there are plenty more Seoul-based designers doing impressive things. News director Jake Silbert compiled a half-dozen worth your attention, from the hyper-local Gajiroc to the rejiggered ’90s staples of SHIRTER to the stripped-down basics of Khakis. “I’m interested in people who don’t care about style,” Khakis creative director Junhyung Seo told Silbert. “Some research deeply; some don’t. I care about the details when making clothes, but I don’t require customers to care.” |
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On the hype-ier end of the spectrum, Stinney was the only western journalist to attend an early walkthrough of HAUS NOWHERE, a 14-story beast of a retail building that doubles as a shrine to futuristic fashion. Inside, he found a concept store that was more art than product: an enormous effigy of a slumbering puppy standing in for a new scent from perfume maker TAMBURINS, for instance, and a statue of an enormous Tilda Swinton-like figure that was graced by the presence of Swinton herself. Perhaps the future of retail is spectacle. |
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Back in New York, everyone is gearing up for the city’s fashion week — including Highsnobiety. We’ll be hosting a pop-up at 45 Grand Street where you can buy our 2025 fall print issue, see a story from the magazine come to life in an immersive video installation, and shop special collaborations with brands we love. But before all that starts, Silbert has a tip for getting dressed to fit in with the fashion throngs. And the tip is: try wearing brown. Neither as singular as black nor as obvious as white, brown gives garments nuance, Silbert writes. You can wear it with everything, anything, in almost any circumstance. In fact, brown is a rainbow of shades. And there is perhaps no better reflection of this far-reaching appeal than faded brown garments, which are heavily represented in the Fall/Winter 2025 season. |
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