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Mia Kim
- An
Eclectic Surprise
Fashion designer
Mia Kim strives toward a kind of kinetic painting where the feminine
form becomes a dynamic canvas on which she applies color, patterns
and fabric. In this way, Mia Kim explores and accentuates style,
shape and movement with an artist's eye. Mia's aesthetic attitudes
toward fashion arise naturally from her fine arts education and
background in painting. Upon graduating from Dong-Ah University
in Pu-San, Korea the petit Masan native made her way to Manhattan
in 2001. Mia absorbed the visceral energy of the city and marveled
at the panoply of divergent, dramatic fashions pulsing through
the streets. The result transformed her and, like the woman in
Chagall’s painting Promenade,
she took flight and headed away from painting and into fashion.
Mia Kim started with wild experimentations
that soon developed into a sophisticated fashion vocabulary.
Her nascent steps involved deconstructing and reconstituting
every stitch of clothing she could get her hands on. Out of
this crucible emerged her first line in 2003. It was a study
in contrasts: from scant to plush the first of her two noteworthy
pieces featured an eye-brow raising pair of see-through paints
made from linen and net. Conversely, the second piece was an
almost '50s style ruffled skirt with layer upon layer of colored
fabrics. After her wild 'punk' phase, Mia Kim began work on
her 2004 line. This outing reflects and informs a synthesized
three-part concept. The first drew upon her newfound fondness
for tailored feminine fashions of the American 1920s -- a celebratory,
stylish era for women liberated from draconian corsets and
tedious old-world mores. Her second inspiration sprang from
the Impressionist school and its interest in the play of color
and light. Finally, her ethnic background came to the fore
in the form of classic Asian textiles and prints For Mia Kim
the realization of her triptych can be found in her popular “Renaissance” jacket – the flared cuffs,
open neck and high collar recall vintage opulence and craftsmanship,
while the thick, lush Far Eastern fabrics evoke her Korean heritage.
The silky texture and half-tone color selections create a kind
of iridescent effect that encourages the perception of the Renaissance
jacket to shift and change with the light. For the fall and winter
of 2005, Mia Kim introduces her third line which promises both
a return to her experimental roots and a continuation of her
refined sensibilities.
Leveraging her newly opened design
and production studio in the Lower East Side of Manhattan,
she extends and embellishes her work on the highly realized
Renaissance jacket. But she also looks forward to introducing
its “funky” foil
in the form of a jacket featuring wild fabrics with splashy abstract
prints and multi-colored lining. Similarly, she’ll introduce
both new dresses and blouses that are Fauvist in their use of
color and daring in their asymmetrical pattern work. For Mia
Kim this line allows her to revisit her immediate inspirations
with the maturity and perspectives of the intervening years.
www.miakimdesign.com |
