In a world of automated luxury, LVMH Prize-nominated designer Jiyong Kim designs clothes that could only have been designed by hand. His eponymous brand, JiyongKim, specializes in familiar-looking garments that reveal themselves to be anything but: torsos are interrupted by unexpected panels, seams wind around limbs, trousers curve in ways that legs do not.
And, yet, the intricacies of JiyongKim's self-described "meticulous" patternmaking are a delightful surprise that only make the most sense in-person. The most potent element of his work is visible from a mile away. Maybe even 93 million miles away.
Nearly half of everything that Kim has sampled, and sewn in South Korea since founding his brand in 2021, typically of recycled textiles, is placed outside for upwards of several months to be individually bleached by Earth's Sun.
Some clothes are lain flat, some are scrunched up, some are tied or partially covered. But all receive a unique, chemical-free finish that makes them utterly distinct, even across the same style of garment.
The sun-bleaching process "varies widely and depends on... material, time of year, and chance. That’s the charm of this process: you ultimately leave things up to nature and serendipity," Kim explained to Highsnobiety. "We hope to [make] people question what can be considered valuable and to examine their own relationship with beauty and consumption."
This is a different kind of slow fashion, one that is slow by necessity. And it'd be a great gimmick, if it were merely a gimmick.
Instead, they're artful examples of time's ceaseless march, juxtaposing aged panels against fresh fabric. If you step back, you can sniff out notes of climate change and mortality: we're only here for so long and so are our clothes. The wardrobe of Dorian Gray.
Read whatever you like in Kim's work. He's happy to leave the musing to the critics.
In his own words, Kim's purpose is, simply, "to rethink the value of things that may have been considered worthless." Wear is wonderful.
It's a timely mantra. The zeal for lived-in, pre-faded workwear has trickled up to even the luxury labels.
But Kim's sunlight experiments have been core to his work since his days at Bunka Fashion College and Central Saint Martins (Kim received a BA from CSM in 2020 and an MA in 2022, founding JiyongKim in between) and were present even as far back as in his graduate collection.
"Starting my brand was very difficult — in the early days, there was a lack of funding, resources, or amenities," he said. But even with his growing visibility, Kim has no interest in "mass sales, scaling, creating a big team, [or] being stocked in a ton of shops."
Not that more shops are needed, really: Kim's young label is already sold by international retailers like SSENSE, MR PORTER, and Dover Street Market, whose support presented a welcome challenge to the modest designer.
"I had mixed feelings at the start," he recalled. "When I first found out that they wanted to place orders I was very excited. Afterwards, I started to worry about all the issues that may come with the new expectations. But now I’m very happy to be sustaining relationships with such renowned retailers."
A whirlwind of emotions indicative of Kim's whirlwind success. In 2023, he won the annual Samsung Fashion Design Fund Award and, in 2024, is a semi-finalist for the year's LVMH Prize.
During judgment for the Prize, Kim displayed one of his favorite garments, itself a neat summation of his brand.
Its shape recalls that of a track jacket but its shawl collar and covered placket are more savoir faire than sportswear. Likewise, the jacket is cut from a deadstock vintage French velvet curtain, finished with upcycled buttons and lining made of the curtain's rear facing.
And, most obviously, its plush exterior is radically bleached near-white, scorched at the torso and starkly wrinkled on the sleeves as if Hephaestus wore it for the day.
Recognizable in shape, rendered alien by detailing, inverted by sunburn, and salvaged from scrap, the garment is distinctly JiyongKim. It could be no one else's.
"We’ve come a long way since the start," Kim likes to say. "But this is only just the beginning."
