Designer Profile 2022: Stephanie Kim
When meeting Stephanie Kim at Pret for an interview about designing for the MODA Fashion Show, I knew that I will not struggle to find her. I knew that she was that girl with a captivating, vivid style and an artsy vibe. And I knew that our conversation will be insightful. Enjoy some inspiring, intelligent thoughts of one of our designers - Stephanie Kim, a third year majoring in Computer Science and Philosophy.
How has your background shaped your artistic vision?
“My own struggles with fashion made me rethink my attitude towards it. Back in high school, I used wear one same outfit for a whole year.” Living her whole life in the US, Stephanie experienced tension between her South Korean roots and American identity, and it was expressed through her style. But the peak of the change happened when she came to UChicago: “Seeing people on the quad - so different, unique and artistically fearless - I started experimenting with my own style and have now totally changed the way I convey myself to others.”
What are your most/least favorite aspects about the design process?
“I love that you can just do fashion and be explanatory. I do not choose the outfit, I get to create it. What is vexing is taking apart what you’ve sewed together. But it’s actually weird for me to call it annoying: If there was an easy path to it, it wouldn’t be as worthwhile.”
What are you thinking about when designing?
“About my models. How it’s gonna look on every type of person. It’s a different outfit on every model, and you cannot detach it from them.” Why is clothes/fashion important to you? “It is the only thing all of us have in common. It is our first projection to others, and it always carries some message.” Then, Stephanie compared communication through drawings to that through clothes:
Unlike paintings, everyone can understand clothes.
After this, she shared another reason she prefers designing: one cannot take a picture and carry it with them. With clothes, though, it is possible:
The canvas is the living being.
What is the most inspiring about UChicago for your creative process?
“Watching the scenery and people in it. I like to ponder what they seem to be thinking, and they are interesting both psychologically and figuratively.” For Stephanie, witnessing that constant change is creatively stimulating, and she finds unification in that diversity: “I am thinking to myself, what if I take that man’s shirt and put it on bikers?”
My approach is mixing together a panorama of all the things and people I have seen.
Best music to play on the runway for you models?
“… that is a tough question”. Here, I thought that it is just challenging for Stephanie to choose the best songs out of the abundance out there. But I was struck: “I don’t think I'd even like any music to my show. Sound makes a big difference, and models behave in a particular way. I don’t want the music to dictate the mood for the viewers, I want them to feel it themselves. But my choice would be organic conversations, such as home-made recording or clips from audio-books of Stephen Hawking.”
