House of Ji Haye haute couture
Due to my little hot tub encounter (see previous post), Donna and I were invited to tour the shop of designer Ji Haye. She only moved to Korea two or so years ago, having spent twenty years in Japan and Paris. As a result, she’s not that well known in Korea, and her shop is in an arty, but unassuming, neighborhood.
Unfortunately, she ended up with an appointment she couldn’t miss, so instead we met with her assistant Madeline for the tour. In a way, it was a good thing, as we could communicate in English and enjoy a much longer chat!
Interesting tidbit: Women in Korea very, very rarely purchase formalwear — even wedding gowns! Everything’s a rental, and it’s altered to fit the renter. As a result, most of the dresses in the shop were the exact ones from the runway — some of them very worn around the edges, though. But there were several racks of them, and all very impressive, as almost all work on them was hand sewn.
Besides getting to see the details on all the dresses, we also got to see a dress that had not been unveiled to anyone yet! It was just days away from going down the runway!
Pretty cool, huh? First look at a couture creation!!!!
(BTW, Donna took these photos — except for the one with her in it, of course)
It was a wonderful afternoon. Donna got to show her designs to a REAL designer (I’ll do a post on Donna and her designs another time) as well as see some truly unique gowns. I got to talk about the fashion business with someone who was actually in it and pick up some bits of gossip (that I probably should not share here). It was at least a week before Donna started walking on terra firma again, and spurred me on toward taking some risks (as in, sewing things when I have no pattern and no one to ask advice).
It’s amazing the things that can happen when you least expect it!
(Blogging note) : There’s a little line below this post with stats (which are not important to you), but there’s also a place to comment if you want to use that.
If I click on the first pic, I see a larger version (your cute daughter!), but the others don’t do anything. Any way to get larger versions of those designs? They look pretty yummy.
I’ve been looking forward to this post. I am very surprised they let you take pictures of pieces that have not been shown in public yet. That’s great.
How fortunate that you had this encounter! I am very excited for you. It’s also surprising that women in Korea do not purchase formal wear. It certainly would be cheaper if they adopted this custom here in the US. Think of all those bridesmaid dresses we wouldn’t have to pay for!
Were her gowns for rent? If so how much were they?
Great post!
Esri Rose — I think I got the pictures fixed. Hopefully that won’t happen again.
Fashion Sensei — They let me take pics because they were less than a week away from the shows, and it was just the one dress, not the whole collection. (And the show happened a few weeks before I posted this, just to be safe and not step on any toes.)
The gowns were indeed for rent — you could see how worn out some of them were from the constant alterations. I asked how much it cost, but Madeline didn’t know, since someone separate handles the shop (and there were no listed prices or tags or anything.)