Introduction
Denim is ubiquitous in Fashion. Even in contemporary fashion, it continues to be prevalent. This observation is evident in the object of study, the Big Park Dress. This dress was exhibited in Spring 2015, from Seoul, South Korea. It is a detailed and bright-colored tank dress bearing a watercolor portrait of a woman holding a white long-eared bunny. The image represents the designer’s childhood memories living in the Korean Countryside. This paper examines the Big Park Dress and how it captures the timelessness and ubiquitous nature of denim.
The Big Park Dress may be described as a tiered tank dress. It is made up of a synthetic satin fabric top joined at the waistline to overlapping bands of black and off-white denim sections. The black denim section provides a sharp contrast with the off-white denim section and the upper body of the dress. The black and white denim bands of the dress have roughly cut edges with loose threads hanging. The denim bands form pleat-like folds all round. The designer of this dress is Park Youn Soo of the BIG PARK fashion house from Seoul, South Korea. Park Youn Soo is a renowned fashion designer in the industry, having dominated the Korean fashion scene for more than 25 years. He is the recipient of many awards including the Best Fashion designer award and Prime Minister Award. He is also the lead Professor of Design at Seoul’s Don-Yang University.
The Big Park Dress was produced in 2015 for the “Global Fashion Capitals” exhibition at the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in New York, USA. The “Global Fashion Capitals” exhibition is a series of exhibitions focusing on the fashion industry’s capitals. The project involves the world’s main cities for fashion like Milan, London, Paris, and New York, but with a special interest in up and coming cities like Shanghai, Seoul, Istanbul, Berlin, Stockholm, etc. The project’s underpinnings are the highlights of the fashion industry’s progress and development in each city and how it stands up to economic, political and cultural factors. Within the “Global Fashion Capitals,” the Big Park Dress captures the present and the past in that it captures an adventurous contemporary stance while using denim, a feature of past fashion movements. It matches with other subjects of the exhibition such as Alexandre Herchcovitch’s “jumpsuit” that is made of beads and Manish Arora’s “ensemble” from New Delhi. According to Ramirez-Valle and McGlothen, the dress appeals to the younger generation for being adventurous, but still wearable. In Korea, it has been popularized in pop culture by idols such as EXID’s Hani as well as Heechul from Super Junior.
The Big Park Dress fits into the global history of denim. The denim fabric fashion fad cuts across the globe in the major fashion capitals. Seoul, where the Big Park Dress comes from has emerged in recent times as a global fashion city in its own right. It is not surprising, therefore, that the dress features the predominant use of denim in the designers attempt to appeal to a younger demographic while maintaining her dresses classy. According to Miller and Woodward, 34% to 68% of people in London, Istanbul, Seoul, San Francisco, and Rio streets wear blue denim jeans. Denim is ubiquitous and in meta-sociology, the fact that the majority of the global population might prefer wearing denim points to dynamics of capitalism or emergence of individualism. Denim emerged in the 1870s in America and was popularized by Western movies and Television events such as the toppling of the Berlin wall by men wearing denim jeans. The dress captures the changing uses of denim over the years from the times it was a manual work outfit to its role today in fashion and vanity.
Conclusion
The Big Park Dress, by Park Youn Soo, captures the changing roles of denim over the years from a hard labor garment to a fashion item. The Big Park Dress, an entity in the “Global Fashion Capitals” exhibition at FIT, New York, captures the exhibition’s objective to highlight the progress and development in each city and how it stands up to economic, political and cultural factors. Undoubtedly, this item provides an interesting look at denim as a ubiquitous item of clothing.
Bibliography
MFIT, "Global Fashion Capitals." The Museum at FIT 1, no. 2 (2015): 1-5.
Miller, Daniel, and Sophie Woodward. "Manifesto For A Study Of Denim*." Social Anthropology 15, no. 3 (2007): 335-351.
Ramirez-Valle, Gissella, and Deserae McGlothen. "Introducing The 5 Korean Fashion Designers Of Primary Boutique." Mutzine. Last modified 2015. Accessed April 19, 2016. http://www.mutzine.me/features/5-korean-fashion-designers.
