On October 6th, 2018, Han Seung-jin (Chinese Language and Literature / Fashion Design, 14), won the emerging-designer contestatthe 2018 Gangnam Festival. Since 2007, the festival has been held by Gangnam-gu to help promote its fashion industry. Recently, as more and more foreign tourists come to the festival, it has been growing as one of the biggest global fashion festivals in East Asia.
Among several programs at this festival, the emerging-designer contest is regarded as an opportunity for those who want to become a professional designer in the future. The judging criteria of the contest for this year were divided into three categories: creativity, practicality, and quality. Han Seung-jin won the top prize in this year’s contest, using deconstructive fashion for her works, an idea that refused stereotypes and broke down general knowledge in making clothes. She was especially distinguished from other participants at the contest by applying pattern drafting to her clothes. Professor Yim Eunhyeok from the Department of Fashion Design at SKKU said that this year’s contest was especially meaningful in that five Kingos from the Department of Fashion Design, including Han Seung-jin, were chosen to advance to the final competition among 25 people. Han Seung-jin said that she had chosen a trench coat, which is a popular item, for the contest in order to differentiate her works from her graduation portfolio at SKKU. She tried to show harmony of deconstructive and wearable fashion by choosing the item. There were, however, a lot of problems because the materials of the clothes, such as canvas and cotton cloth, were not normally used to make clothes. Also, since she designed oversized clothes, it took longer to make them. Even though she experienced such problems, when her name was called as the winner of the awards ceremony, she said she was really surprised as she did not believe that she could win such a big prize. She added, “I would like to continue to make more meaningful and practical clothes by training constantly in the future.”