As she found herself lockdowned at home due to the pandemic, South Korean designer Woo Young Mi, founder of Wooyoungmi, read a lot. Bernard Werber’s experimental essay ‘’Le Livre du voyage’’ published in 1997 and Matt Sewell’s ‘’Forgotten Beats’’ particularly impressed her, to the point that she dedicated her collection to these two books.
‘’Like any other person, I’ve become increasingly more concerned by the environment. But after reading ‘The Memory’ by Bernard Werber, where the protagonists go back in the past and explore nature, and then ‘Forgotten Beasts’ from American illustrator Matt Sewell, I felt really conscious of [our impact] on nature’’, creative director Woo Young Mi said.
Filmed in a nocturnal woodland, her Fall/Winter 2021 collection invited viewers to enter into an enchanted forest to experience a season founded in mythology and fantasy. The ominous woods set the scene for a dialogue between the natural and the supernatural and guides the collection’s transformation from the ordinary into the extraordinary.
So as to express her environmental concern, Woo Young Mi had revisited the essentials of the outdoor wardrobe with a strongly emphasized notion of protection. Generously cut anoraks, hoodies and jackets were padded, coveralls stretched from head to toe, long sleeves barely showing the fingers, while heads were sometimes covered by balaclava and wool hoods.
The tailoring, Wooyoungmi’s strong point, was not forgot. Woo Young Mi revisited classic patterns like the Prince of Wales with new finishes. As for the colors, they often evoked earth with earthy browns, muted greens, red and a handful of fiery oranges and reds.
The organic curves of hiking boots’s soles made the collection look futuristic, in a nod to the time-traveling protagonists of Werber’s book.