Yina Hwang: Sweet Octopus
Sweet Octopus
Photos Taken by Abby Liman
Yina Hwang is an aspiring fashion designer originally from South Korea, having also moved to Vancouver, China, and back to South Korea, she now lives in New York City where she studies fashion design at Parsons, The New School for Design. Yina is twenty years old; a sophomore. Yina is no ordinary sophomore from Parsons, she is one of fourteen Parsons students selected to participate in the annual Fusion Fashion Show; a fashion competition exclusively for Parsons and FIT. This year’s show ran four times, twice on Saturday March 5 and twice on Sunday March 6. At the final show on Sunday evening the panel of judges, composed of leading participants in the fashion industry came to examine the collections themselves. In addition to the judges, each audience member was able to vote for one designer from Parsons and one designer from FIT. This year there was both a Parsons and an FIT winning collection. Though she did not win, Yina’s collection was and is among the most impressive. The collection is reminiscent with a pink dreamy, bubbly, floating cloud. Although Yina’s collection did not win, in our book her collection won most magical, eye ball loving, and most levitating from reality, a very special and exquisite characteristic.
Interview
Lolly Pop: LP Y: Yina Hwang
LP: How many collections have you made?
Y: I have made a lot of clothes, but as a collection, this is my second. The first one was called Dragon Girls, there were not a lot of looks in it, but I have six looks in the Octopus collection.
LP: How does the Fusion Fashion Show application process work, what did you have to do to get into the show?
Y: It’s for freshman, sophmores, and juniors. We have to make our portfolios; illustrations, sketches. We have to have swatches (of fabric) and make a book. I also made a mood board for the collection. We also have to answer the questions they ask us. Basically the most important thing is your illustrations/ your designs. The mood board is optional, I made one but some of my friends did not.
LP: So they know what you will be making before you get into the show?
Y: Yes.
LP: What is the inspiration for the Octopus collection?
Y: Okay so it is about Octopus. Since I was really little my dad would feed me Octopus. I didn’t really know the reason why I was eating it, until I came to college. The last day that I spent time with my dad in Korea, the day before I came to New York, I asked him for the reason why he always fed me octopus since I was a baby. He told me this story; his dad passed away when he was five or six, and when my grandpa was alive he fed my dad octopus just like my dad did for me. My dad wanted to do something for me that his dad did for him, and give the love that he felt from his dad to me, I was so touched, it was so sweet. I decided that one day I was going to make a collection about that topic.
LP: I love that story, it's so sweet! Earlier during the photoshoot you mentioned that you always loved clothes and shopping, but when did you realize that you wanted to be a designer?
Y: I really, really enjoyed wearing cool clothes and walking down the street in them, and street photographers would ask if they could take pictures of me, and oh my gosh I thought it was so cool. I really, really enjoyed those moments. Sometimes I would imagine a certain skirt, I would imagine it but it’s not real. I would try to find a similar skirt to the one I imagined but I couldn’t find one. So I just did some sketches of clothes and I would show my friends and my dad. My dad had worked in the fashion industry for quite a long time with my mother. He basically had a fabric trading business that traded from Africa to China to Europe, everywhere, all around the world. My parents really supported me to do design.
LP: That’s so great! When did you start showing those sketches to your parents and your friends?
Y: Since I was really young, like thirteen years old.
LP: Wow that's young, that's impressive. Did you ever try to make any of the designs or did you just show the sketches to people?
Y: When I was in high school I started learning how to make garments and I went to this really, really getto place where factory workers get trained and I learned pattern making and stuff with them, I learned a lot from there about making garments when I was in high school.
LP: That’s really cool that you can make patterns, I wish I could do that! When you graduate from Parsons, two years from now, what do you want to do?
Y: A lot of people ask me the same question. I have been trying to figure out what I want to do after I graduate. My ultimate goal is to have my own brand, called Yina Hwang. But Before that I know I have to know a lot of people from the fashion industry, and I still have a lot to learn from different brands and different people. I want to work at high end brands in New York and Europe before I have my own line.
LP: Would you want to be a designer for those brands or work in another area in fashion?
Y: I want to be a designer.
LP: Do you think that Parsons is preparing you for doing that? What is your favorite thing about Parsons?
Y: It’s really, really up to you. All of us have the same chance. If you can actually use that chance it’s good for you, but if you don’t take the chances that you have at school then you get nothing from the school.
LP: So it’s really up to the student to take advantage of what they are learning at Parsons and the resources there.
Y: Yeah.
LP: I know that Parsons has a reputation for having really good internship opportunities. Do you have any internships for the summer or next school year lined up?
Y: It’s really, really up to you. I always thought that if I went to Parsons I would be working at Marc Jacobs or Alexander Wang, but school can’t really do that for you. You should have your own portfolio, resume, and cover letter. There is a career service center at Parsons, they can help you get a list of available jobs at nice brands, but if you want to be accepted from those brands you should have your own really, really nice portfolio.
LP: Over the summer do you want to have an internship or do you want to work on your own designs?
Y: So I am actually going to do both. I had interviews with some brands in the garment district. One of them was a few days ago with Jonathon Simkhai, they want me to start working there in June. I’m thinking of working there but I am going to apply for other internships at more companies and see which one is the best for me.
LP: Do you know what you would be doing at the internship?
Y: I’m applying for design internships. There are a lot different internships, for example show room internships, sample room internships, production internships, PR internships, all different kinds of stuff. At a design internship you work with the design team, and you do sketches, you make embellishments with them, you help with the work that the designers are doing.
LP: Do you think the Fusion Fashion show has helped you?
Y: Yeah, a lot, a lot! I learned a lot during the Fusion fashion show. I had to start with a concept and develop that into the actual collection, there are so many processes. I learned a lot from the experience.
LP: I can imagine, it really seems like an incredible learning experience. I now know where you got your inspiration for your Fusion collection but where or how do you usually get your inspirations?
Y: I get my inspirations from my every day life, from things I have experienced, the emotions I have felt during my life. While I am living in New York and doing fashion design here, I have realized that sitting at home and getting stuck won’t help anything. Whenever I don’t know what to design or what to do I go out and expose myself to strange and new situations and I get inspirations from them. It can be very spontaneous and weird for example I get lost in Chinatown, I go to the East River and walk until I reach the end of Manhattan, sometimes I go to Psychic studios and get a reading for fun. I chill out on the rooftop for fun and I see people walking and imagine what they are thinking. Sometimes while I’m on the rooftop I think about who I am until I almost figure it out, sometimes I find the answer, but even if I don’t I still get a hint about the answer.
LP: I love that, I should do that. How do you transform those feelings, and ideas into clothes?
Y: At first it’s very abstract. For example I try to relate the inspiration with music. Then I start thinking of the silhouette that I can relate to my inspiration, and I make a bunch of sketches, I look at a bunch of colors, I use a lot of swatches, and then I narrow it down to the actual designs.
LP: Just yesterday I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and saw the Fashion exhibit there, it was really amazing. All of the pieces were very detailed and intricate, and your work is too. Your pieces and the pieces at the Met evoke certain feelings and emotions like poetry. A lot people say that Fashion can be really poetic and is poetic.
Y: I agree with that idea, my mom is a poet. I think that poetry is such a beautiful thing, because you can use a few words to convey a lot of emotion and beauty. Fashion is really similar to poetry. For example, in my collection I used materials like neoprene, pearls, and jewels. I used those materials instead of words in a poem and I can still convey the emotion, or the story in my garments.
LP: Do you ever associate certain fabrics with certain feelings?
Y: It’s not really about the fabrics, but it’s the combination of the colors. For example, the story; my inspiration is very sweet because it’s about my dad’s love. I basically used the pale pastel tone colors that you saw on the garments, the pink and all of the shiny jewels.
LP: Yes! And the jewels and beads on the garments were beautiful, did you put every bead on by hand?
Y: Yeah
LP: Oh my God how long did that take?
Y: Six months, that’s how long the entire collection took.
LP: That's dedication. Do you think growing up in Korea, China, and Vancouver have influenced your work?
Y: A lot, because there are big contradictions between China and Vancouver. When I was in China I didn’t live in a big fancy city, I lived in a city called Yiwu, it’s a trading and commercial city. I always saw the old dragons with the embroideries on the wall in stores and restaurants, but when I went to Vancouver everything was really clean and modern. I started to feel confused about who I am. I was really confused about where I belong and I was very depressed at the time because I didn’t know who I was or what to design. If I don’t know who I am how can I know what to design, I struggled with that for a long time. I stayed at home being depressed and I realized that going out and meeting new people would really help because I can also learn from them. Through meeting new people, I can figure out what to do in the future, my friends really give me good advice about fashion, my friends really motivated me. Fashion is not just about design but it is more about society I would say because the customers are not designers but the costumers are from a wide variety of places, so thinking about their opinions is really important.
LP: That’s very profoundl.
Y: I want to tell you one more thing. Do you know who Alber Elbaz, the previous designer for Lanvin?
LP: Yes.
Y: He came to Parsons to give a presentation and in it he said “love people and people will love you back”. I was trying to relate that to fashion, and I think that if I love fashion, fashion will love me back, so I always try to love fashion.