It started in the hysteria of spring 2020. The world shut down, people venturing out of the house only to fetch groceries from supermarkets. It drove a few of us a little mad; some people even resorted to building makeshift face masks out of plastic supermarket bags cut with eyeholes, in lieu of the usual slung-over-the-ears sort.
This image, comical and concerning, was a catalyst for designer San Kim’s graduate collection. Now an alumnus of the University of Westminster’s menswear MA, he crafted a collection that took both elements of that image, and transformed it into a rack of wild and almost purposely unwearable statement garments, crafted from plastic supermarket shopping bags. They are a mix of Jeff Koons’s Balloon Dog sculptures and strange amorphous sex dolls, but each one carries the real weight of a twofold problem: the manner in which a pandemic has changed the lives of people forever, and a plastic waste crisis that’s damaging the natural world’s lifecycle too.
The finished result is both thought-provoking and brilliantly escapist: proof that clothes can help us confront society’s woes by using the very materials that spell our downfall.
Here, San Kim unpacks his work, his love of fashion as a form of language, and why a functional designer is something he never strives to be.
How do you define your practice?
It’s very organic. Once I’ve had a specific, direct experience that I want to share with people, I juxtapose it with an indirect one: something lifted from a movie or books, photos, art pieces which feel like metaphors for my experiences or explain my feelings. Those elements will combine or interact with each other to make my work.
You have said fashion was the strongest form of communication you’ve had in your life. What does it say that you can’t put into words?
I am not very good at speaking with people, and my English is very poor. But for me fashion is the language that I could communicate with so many different people from different countries, even better than my Korean. Fashion is my language, and tool for expression of my emotions and thoughts – the best language for introspective people like me.
You started out studying womenswear in Korea, then completed a diploma in womenswear at the London College of Fashion, before wrapping up your studies with an MA at Westminster in menswear. Were those two codes, womenswear and menswear, different to you?
Well, to me they were very different, but during my studies in Westminster, I changed my mind. The fashion I am creating is non-binary fashion. I’m trying to challenge sex, age, skin colour and body types. Those things don’t matter within my fashion.
What you make now is not tied to gender. How did removing those boundaries change your work?
Actually, I was challenging body size at first. For me, the standard body size on the runway was always something I questioned. I’d ask: “What is the runway collection for?” and “Who’s going to wear it?” I want my target audience to be whoever wants to wear my clothes, no matter their shape or size. Once I did that process, naturally I kept questioning stereotypes of gender, age and nationality.
Can you describe what practicality means to you in fashion?
I consider the conceptual aspects more than the functional.
And at what point did you start to think less functionally, and more expressively,
as a designer?
From the very first time. I wanted to be seen as an artist such as a painter or sculptor. The only thing that is different with fashion is that I am using people as a canvas, or as the base of a sculpture. I define my work as a living sculpture rather than clothes.
“I wanted to be seen as an artist such as a painter or sculptor. The only thing that is different with fashion is that I am using people as a canvas, or as the base of a sculpture. I define my work as a living sculpture rather than clothes”
Your graduate collection at Westminster was inspired by the DIY face masks made from shopping bags that went viral online at the start of the pandemic. It was quite a novel approach to a serious situation. Has that always been your plan: to inject humour into fashion?
Yes! I want to share positive energy with people through fashion even in hard times like now. Throughout history, fashion has functioned as a tool for helping people through hard times.
Your work is often framed as a riff on fetishwear, do you embrace that?
Yes, in a way. I don’t know how people define fetishwear, but obviously I got inspired by fetish. I like the theory of Freud and psychosexual development. For me, the concept that an adult’s libido is deeply linked with the behaviour of childhood is very interesting. I perceived this energy as a very pure one. So for me, the process of making my fashion world is a journey of finding the causality between childhood and adulthood.
Sustainable, high-end fashion is about scarcity and working responsibly. Can you explain what you were trying to say as a designer by making a collection from one of the most ubiquitous and harmful materials on the planet?
Well actually, there was a hidden intention which I haven’t really mentioned before: I tried to use paradoxical juxtaposition. Every supermarket carrier bag has a warning about suffocation but, paradoxically, people were using the plastic to combat a respiratory disease: Covid-19. Every supermarket bag has a message that claims these companies are “eco-friendly”. But are they? That was my question.
How realistic is a sustainable future in fashion?
This is our responsibility and duty right now for the future. Yes, I am sure that it’s realistic. There are so many beautiful people trying to approach a sustainable future, not only in the fashion field but almost everywhere. And as you know, it has to be a realistic goal, both for the Earth and for us.
Special thanks to all local friends featured; Kirsty McDougall, Kate Boccaccini-Meadows, Katie Brinsmead-Stockholm, Carley Aryes, Jack, Anthony & Emma Burrill, Shona Campbell. All shot on location @knollhouselocations.