Wooyoungmi Spring/Summer 2027 / SS27 at Paris Fashion Week
Heung is a Korean concept of joy, spontaneity and rhythm. A ‘social emotion’ that replaces sorrow with optimism, it can be evoked through meditative manifestation in every area of life. When, for example, you dress with heung, you raise your spirits. For SS27 / Spring/Summer 2027, Wooyoungmi studies the sartorial demonstration of heung in a collection dedicated to the lightness of being. Observing how cultures around the world induce their own sense of elation through clothes, Madame Woo makes a proposal for a sentient wardrobe: a joie de s’habiller that promotes buoyancy not only aesthetically, but consciously, too.
In the study of what imbues clothes with joy across geographies, three shared qualities recur: light, colour and the imprint of individuality. When vibrant clothes are shaped by wear, weathered by time and faded by light, they feel saturated with a soul that invokes feelings of warmth. Through surface treatments, colourful fabrics and leathers evoke a timeworn and lived-in silhouette as if paled by the sun or passed down through generations. The sensibility generates a wardrobe effortlessly assembled across eras, styles and cultures, and consistently structured with lightness.
Details of Wooyoungmi SS27 / Spring/Summer 2027, Pattern is a cross-cultural means of storytelling and spirit-lifting. Stripes appear in outerwear, shirts and bags in a wealth of expressions inspired by global cultures. Checks – a historical emblem of spirituality and belonging – feature in outerwear, suiting and loungewear, as well as in headbands inspired by those worn in high-temperature environments around the world. A universal representation of lightness, the feathers of birds are evoked in crumple-dyed sheer coats, jackets, shirts and shorts, and in colourful bursts of marabou.
The minhwa motifs of ancient Korean art are emblazoned on shirts, their characteristic cranes serving as figures of freedom and lightness. Native to minhwa, elements of the natural symbols of longevity employed in sipjansaengdo folk painting are reimagined in colourful, naïve graphics on T-shirts and embroideries on denim. They appear alongside lotus flowers representing purity and renewal. Leather charms are abstract interpretations of the Gwaebul norigae pendants traditionally worn with hanbok as protective talismans. Princely parures enrich and empower the silhouette.
All images Wooyoungmi Spring/Summer 2027 by the brand. PR agency AI PR. STYLING Nicco Torelli, CASTING Shelley Durkan, HAIR Cyndia Harvey at Art Partner, MAKEUP Lynsey Alexander at Jolly Collective, MUSIC Frédéric Sanchez at Intrepid London, PRODUCTION Without Production, RUNWAY PHOTOGRAPHY Luca Tombolini, VIDEO PRODUCTION IDI Production, BACKSTAGE PHOTOGRAPHY Robin Joris Dullers, BACKSTAGE VIDEO Eunji Lee, THANK YOU Anders Christian Madsen