Eudon Choi SS17
Show Report for Spindle Magazine
There is a certain romance in angst. The consciousness of subtleties, tentative forays into understanding - within fashion these become house codes, calling cards of the designer integral to the brand's DNA.
Eudon Choi is no stranger to romance: collections reference unsung heroines and overtly feminine shapes, and within them a ripple of dissonance. The eternal dialogue of masculine/feminine, the exploration of the female form - ruminations that in his most recent collection translated into sock garters exposed through slits, boxy shapes to hide beneath, and the nervous twist of green silk. Idiosyncrasies that elevate details, and tell stories through fabric.
There was a youthful exuberance in Choi's Spring/Summer offering - in the pinafore dress with button trim, and the almost-but-not pinstripes caught somewhere between formal suit and school uniform, softened in pale blue. Petal prints were oversized whirls of colour: fingerprints in ink, drops of watercolour paint, and a nod toward 'The Polka Dot' series by photographer Franscesca Woodman, who inspired Choi's Spring/Summer 2017 collection.
A life invariable understood by her sudden passing at the age of twenty-two, her work is considered feminist due to its self-reflective nature, and poignant due to her suicide; yet so often over-looks the humour in her work: the playful, unencumbered ideas of a young adult.
Within her analogue images, long exposures explore painterly blurs of movement, she interacts with her weathered surroundings - finding a quiet beauty hidden beneath peeling wallpaper, and in patterns cast by sunlight. Her inhibitions were visible, on reflection, in loose fitting cottons, and in hemlines that fell into voluminous flounces and asymmetric lines. This poetry, one of discord and harmony, felt tempered in deconstructed tailoring; Choi's menswear background pulling ruffles and open shoulder details into carefully constructed looks: a painstaking perfectionism that made trailing lengths and strap detailing wearable.
Looks felt neither androgynous, nor gendered in any obvious way; instead there was a disquiet in undone elegance and strict tailoring, a vulnerability in modest lengths and cocooning silhouettes. Pieces were layered on top of one another, cut away to reveal them, and flowing into strips. Francesca's whimsical subtleties and tentative explorations found throughout.
