This post has been far, far too long coming and I wholeheartedly apologise. The good news is I’ve finally, finally finished editing the 800 odd photos I took at Seoul Fashion Week. 800 odd photos taken in 4 days. Although, in all fairness, I would’ve finished much faster had I not taken to naver to sift through all the Korean fashion bloggers and photographers posts about the same event first – in a slightly vain attempt to find as many photos of myself as possible… Also editing 800 odd photos of very fashionable people kind of makes you want to forget you even went (read: incredibly jealous).

But go I did – and it was an amazing experience and I plan to repeat it in as many countries as I can, since I enjoyed it so, so much. ♥

Fashion Week was held at the wonderfully space age Dongdaemun Design Plaza & Park, and it provided the perfect backdrop for the fashionistas that descended on Seoul for this event. It’s at exit 1 of Dongdaemun station if you want to go and check it out yourself, if you can’t then there’s a bit more information about it here, with photos!

The event started on the 21st of March, with a massive opening ceremony featuring one of the most popular South Korean boy groups of the moment (EXO), which I elected not to go to seeing as it was straight after class had finished and with finals being that week I just didn’t feel up to battling with a bunch of fourteen year olds and their DSLR’s and screaming.

Saturday was the first day of the 5 I attended, but being the brilliant and well-organised person that I am, I didn’t charge my camera batteries. So unfortunately I couldn’t take any photos and just stood around gawking at all the sights in general like a right old tourist. Oh well. Lesson in the learning – always charge your batteries if you’re intending to go somewhere… how obvious.

On Sunday I was fully prepared to go camera-crazy. Batteries fully charged, spare batteries fully charged, memory card empty… it was just my shyness in asking people to let me take their picture (it’s daunting, ok!!!) that let me down a bit. I did manage to get some great shots though, some of which are over here. The plaza was really packed with people – the vast majority there for fashion week, others there for the attractions that were happening around the Plaza. (one of the Taekwondo schools had come to do a demonstration, there was also a bboy demonstration too.) Though we went quite late on in the afternoon and the girl who came with me wasn’t exactly feeling it. I could tell she wasn’t enjoying it as much as me and I didn’t want to force her to stay when she could’ve been doing other things so we left after about two hours.

Day 3 was when I actually got a chance to see some of the models as they moved between shows or arrived at the design plaza. Don’t think I’ve ever seen photographers run so fast to get shots in my life. It was hectic, borderline carnage when the big-name models like Irene Kim and Kim WonJoong walked past with their ever-moving circles of photographers, but it was lovely to see how much the models respected those wishing to take photos of them, and how much the photographers respected the models. South Koreans are an inherently polite society (not quite to the extend of the Japanese, but still) so it was sweet that the models paid just as much attention to those with just their phone camera as those with DSLR’s and promotional products.

Above are some of my favourite model shots. Lee HoJung (1,4&5) was a consistent, adorable ball of sunshine throughout the week, Joo WooJae and JiSoo (3) were effortlessly flawless in such perfect lighting that I don’t think many of the photo’s I’ve seen of them together like this here have been retouched. I still don’t know the name of the model in 2, but she was incredibly sweet.

These are some of my favourite shots I took throughout the week. Korean street style is something that still baffles me occasionally – it can be incredibly chic to incredibly out there yet it still all seems to… work, somehow. Admittedly, I doubt a lot of the more fashion-forward-entering-into-the-slightly-impractical boundaries are worn a lot on the street in day-to-day life, but it’s still incredibly interesting to see how people here put outfits together. There are underlying similarities with the west, but also something so totally Korean.

I did have the privilege of seeing 3 shows at Seoul Fashion Week: pushBUTTON, Steve J & Yoni P, and KYE.  KYE was the only one I didn’t actually attend, I just watched it on the big screen outside the entrance to the Plaza as the friends that had come with me for the final day ate streetfood. But I think the shows need a post of their own so I think I’ll end this one here. 

if you liked these, then check out my other photos of Seoul Fashion Week.

♥

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