Where The Hell Am I?: FeetManSeoul (FMS)

Showing posts with label FeetManSeoul (FMS). Show all posts

Monday, May 12, 2008

Steve Aoki in Seoul

Today was Buddha's Birthday which is a national holiday here in Seoul. Now it's not so great for me as I have Monday's off this term anyway. However today everyone got a day off and I get, well, my usual day off.

However, that day off is great for all the people who went to Gayagum Hall at the Sheraton Grande Hotel in Seoul because Steve Aoki along with another L.A. DJ, Cut Chemist, rolled into town to throw a party. What a party it was!

When I heard about it, I was so excited. Being from L.A. I am well-aware of Cinespace and the club culture that has sprung up around Aoki's parties, his Dim Mak record label and clothing collection and the buzz around the celebrities his events attract. That had me prancing around Seoul for about a week listening to Aoki's new debut CD on my iPod and irritating people next to me on mass transit because those tracks are best played loud. Believe me, some don't like the CD at all, but eh, screw 'em - you can't please everyone. The hate runs deep. Hatin' on Steve Aoki is like an Olympic sport it seems. A lot of people want to do it but only a few do it really well: check it - here and here. Basically, it's fashionable to both like and hate Aoki. Which I guess is fitting as he's in the business now of music and influencing trends. For me, however, it's really just that it's an enjoyable CD that gets my feet tapping.

I had a chance to interview Aoki for the Korea Herald. FeetManSeoul got to walk around snapping photos of Seoul's fashionable ones being whipped into a frenzy of whoops, hollers and dancing.

I've got work first thing tomorrow, but my goal is to write up this interview tonight so let me get back to it. As soon as the Korea Herald publishes it, I'll put it up here too.

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Update! Here is my Korea Herald interview with Steve: The Korea Herald: Regina Walton's Expat Interviews - 'Kid Millionaire' spins in Seoul

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In the meantime, here is FMS's post from last night's party: Steve Aoki Seouled Out!

More hate:

This one just hates everyone it seems, so eh. What's funny is as a Korean, I think it's pretty interesting she takes offense at Cut Chemist mixing hip-hop tracks and confuses that with stealing culture.

Considering he's from L.A. and is in Jurassic 5, which is a hip-hop group in which 4 of the 6 members are black Americans, you know she really has no idea of what she's talking about in this case.

It does strike me as funny though because what's wrong with old skool hip-hop? It's another example of for many here it's all about the audaciously new and flashy - Seoul is so like L.A. sometimes that it's insane. I guess it only makes sense then that L.A. DJs show up in town and are both loathed and loved.

With both Aoki and Cut Chemist what made their sets good was that they mixed in the old with the new...duh. I don't know much about the DJ world but what I can see from just a little bit of research is there are a lot of snobs that seem to forget that the primary job of a DJ is to get the crowd having fun and dancing. It doesn't matter if the track is brand new, rare or obscure or an old favorite.

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Wednesday, April 30, 2008

A Fashionable Day

Fashion! Turn to the left
Fashion! Turn to the right
Oooh, fashion!

Just 'cause I had a fun day yesterday, I've decided to share it.

I got a chance to spend some time with a new friend of mine, Andrew Gordon. He's a male model working here in the Korean fashion scene. What's unique about him is he's an American who speaks Korean quite well, so it makes it easier for him to navigate the modeling industry here. We met at the last Seoul fashion week.

Yesterday evening he was in a runway show for designer 이주영, Lee Ju Young, and invited me along. If you recall I had a chance to interview Ms. Lee during fashion week. It was good seeing her again and this time I had a the chance to socialize at length which was fun. ~Yes, I know where are the interviews? They're still pending on the FeetManSeoul (FMS) site.~

It was interesting to get a more behind the scenes look at the Korean fashion industry. It was a bit of a change because most of my days are spent either in front of a class or in front of a computer. We'll be featuring Andrew as a "fashion insider" on FMS from time to time. I also took the time to interview him for the interview column I write for the Korea Herald's Expat Living section.

Andrew has scored quite a couple of coups recently as he's featured in a 12-page spread in the May 2008 issue of GQ Korea. It's a coup because of the length and because it's the first time a foreigner has gotten a feature like that in GQ Korea. The second coup is he's the face for the latest Hugo Boss campaign and that will be not only in Korea but in a few other countries. I have to say I'm proud to see an American model doing this well in a country that is more insular than not and in an industry we all know is very tough to break into much less be successful.

My interview with him will make its way to the Korea Herald sometime this month. Also, pics and video from my day will make it to the FMS site soon. As I'm not the gate-keeper on that site (meaning I'm not the one who hits "publish") all I can say is stay-tuned.

Here are some pics from the May 2008 GQ Korea spread that I found on the site. (How long that link will stay good is beyond me.)

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Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Club Spektra Party on Friday in Chungdam, Seoul

Update 1: March 29, 2008 @ 1:35pm

Let me say that Club Spektra was a great party. Make sure you're there next time.

Here is the write up from FMS.

Cheers!

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These folks are some new friends of mine, so if you're in Seoul, check this party out.

It will be this Friday, March 28th at Club Answer in Chungdam.

The flier has phone numbers and a map. Just click on the pic for full size.

They also have a MySpace page.

See you there!

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Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Seoul Fashion Week, Day Eight

Yesterday I was just tired and so ready for it to be over. I think I wouldn't have been so tired if it wasn't basically a week of me having two jobs. I was at work teaching in the day and in the evenings I was at the shows and interviewing people. Because the show went through the weekend that means I was there Saturday, Sunday and Monday too (Mondays are my days off.) I'm looking forward to next weekend where I'll make sure to give myself a whole day to myself.

Here is a picture of me, Korean-American signer Park Jeong-hyun and her friend backstage before the last major designer Gee Choon Hee's, 지춘희, show.

moi, Lena aka Jeong-hyun Park (박정현), and friend

In the meantime to entertain you, if you don't know who Lena Park is, here is a video from YouTube of her performing the Eagles classic Desperado at the Korea-Japan Friendship Music Festival in 2005.

I'll add fashion videos soon. Right now I'm in heavy edit and upload mode.

Update 1 - April 3, 2008 @11:20am:

Okay, it's been a few days off from fashion week editing for me. Between a fair amount of social engagements last week and Club Spektra (covered here by FMS), I was just tired when I finally made it home. However now it's time to flip and crop these videos so you can get a feel for what I saw. I'll just add them as I go.

Miss Gee just had an onslaught of tasteful retro inspired clothes coming down the runway. One of my favorites is Barry White. So when the show started off with one my favorite songs from him "Let the Music Play" it was hard to suppress the desire to want to dance around. Of course, I didn't and was able to satiate that desire by looking at the lovely garments coming down the runway.

I also discovered 박희현, Park Hee-hyon, who was one of the runway models. I really liked her look because she has a more authentic look. Yes, I alluding to the excess of eyelid surgery and stuff like that - although she just might have a nose job, it's hard to tell.

Here are a couple of video slices of what I saw.

The start of the Miss Gee F/W 08/09 show:

The end of the Miss Gee F/W 08/09 show:

Here is the beginning of the Lee Young Hee, 이영희, show. She had a great selection of pretty semi-formal and formal dresses and gowns.

Here is the end of the Maison de Lee Young Hee show. She had some wonderful Asian inspired evening gowns. If you can spot it, pause on the strapless hanbok one. I thought it was a lovely dress in what was a lovely collection.

The start and end of the Edward Shin, 신영재, collection, Publicka. The website is embarrassingly sparse, so don't expect to see much. However, if you're Korean you might want to register to see what's there after you register.

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Sunday, March 23, 2008

Seoul Fashion Week, Day Seven

Today was straight up great at Seoul Fashion Week. I've named it "March of the Bad Asses" in my head.

I say this because I saw the Ha Sang Beg, 하상백, show first. And take a look at the video and you should get what inspired me to use the word "march".

What a way to start the day. He's all the rage here. He's a former illustrator, turned model, turned TV fashion correspondent, turned designer and I hear he DJ's from time to time too. He's pretty much doing all of these things simultaneously. That makes him fierce.

He had an awesome show. I also scored an interview with him which turned out great. He's fun to talk to. That interview will make its way to the FeetManSeoul site as soon as we can get through all of the great pictures and interviews we've gotten.

Since Ha has modeled, he's not shy and he opened the show with videos of himself. Now I saw it as him visually giving the crowd an idea of his design concept. I could be wrong about that though. However, whatever the concept was behind it, I liked it.

I'll add more of what I saw, but I LOVED the model who came out first. He basically did a subdued robot (very popular pre-pop locking) routine to the music and then the rest of Ha's fashions followed. It was all wonderful theater and there was a pink jacket that was about thigh length in his collection that I just LOVED.

This is the end of his show.

More videos from this and the other shows I saw will follow. Now, however, it's time to get ready for tomorrow and then it's sleepy time. One more day of Seoul Fashion Week to go and I hope it only gets better from here.

Here comes more video. I'm uploading in reverse chronological order.

The end of the Andy & Debb show.

Their collection was really nice. However, my video shots weren't, so I'll only upload the end of the show. They had great pieces that I could see being stocked and sold in department stores back home. They had a cool 60s retro theme in both the pieces, the styling of their models and, of course, the music. Also, the clothes just kept coming. They have a few stores here in Korea and just seem to really know what they're doing.

The day ran so late that I didn't get a chance to interview them for FMS. However, I hope to sometime soon.

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Seoul Fashion Week, Day Six

Update: May 7, 2008 @ 4:49pm

Finally, an interview has been published. I'll post more as they're uploaded on the FeetManSeoul site.

Korean Fashion Designer Profiles: Hwang Jae Bock

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There is no day five because I didn't go to a show on Friday. Instead, when I left work, I ran home because I'd left my cell phone behind that morning. After writing and answering some emails, I headed out to the other side of town to party and spend time with some of the cool folks I've met this week. That was fun because I rarely spend my time south of the Han River. The group I was with made our way back to my side of town later for a party. However, the end of my evening was showing a journalist I met around the big shopping centers of Dongdaemun and that translated into me not getting to sleep until just before 5am. It was all great fun.

I headed back the shows on Saturday and saw a few shows. I took it easy though and out of eight shows I only saw four: Hwang Jae-bock, 황재복; Jeone Mi-young, 전미영; Yang Hee-deuk, 양희득; and Jung Hun-jong, 저혼종.

Hwang Jae-bock's show was great. It was a great way to start a Saturday. She designs beautiful gowns for formal events and celebrity weddings, and even the most cynical girl likes a pretty gown.

She had celebrity Ahn Seon-yeung, 안선영, a comedic actress, modeling in her show.

Here are a couple of videos from her show.

I've got to edit quite a few more video clips from other shows and don't be impressed. By "edit" I mean use a program to flip the video upright. I shoot most shows sideways to get full shots of the outfits on the runway. However, it takes time to edit and upload so this post will evolve with me adding the video clips over the next few days.

Here is video from Jeone Mi-young, 전미영. Her collection is college Lilycomes. I got a chance to sit next to her at the dinner Seoul Fashion Week had for buyers and press. She's a nice lady. We also interviewed her for FMS, so that interview will get posted as soon as it's edited and translated.

Ms. Jeone had a collection of really great dresses with a lot of vibrant patterns and sensuous fabrics. I'm telling you, these Korean designers really know how to make pretty dresses.

The end of her show:

Now for the life of me, I didn't get the Yang Hee-deuk, 양희득, collection. It was a lot of bright colors over bright leggings that you have been able to order from Capezio Dancewear for years. You can't like them all. I mean kudos for throwing the color combos out there, but I didn't see much design or marketability. However, he's got previous collections that do show his design talent.

Here are two clips from the Jung Hun-jong, 저혼종, collection. This was another one that I wasn't feeling. I'm not into over sized appliqués and this collection was full of huge gaudy roses sewed on to otherwise lovely dresses. Since I love pairing red and black together, this collection hurt my otherwise fashion forward sensibilities.

Here is the start:

Here is the end:

Day 6 wasn't a consistently great day for me. However, this is about sharing what I saw, so opinions may differ.

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Thursday, March 20, 2008

Seoul Fashion Week, Day Four

Another partial day for me at Seoul Fashion Week. I got to see two really great shows in the evening, Lee Ju Young, 이주영, and Lie Bong Sang, 이상봉. Both of these designers had exciting and unconventional collections. Lee Ju Young has a love for hard rock music which is apparent in designs and was also apparent in her show. With her clothes you could step out and go to a club or concert. Lie Bong Sang's collection seemed to be like art you can wear. That means some pieces seemed to be more experimental than not, but it was very pretty collection with lots of circle patterns and florals.

moi and Lee Ju Young

I had a chance to interview Lee Ju Young and, like the other designer interviews, it will end up on the FeetManSeoul site.

Here is video from the end of Lee Ju Young's show. She had quite a few celebrities walking down the runway for her. However, since Korean isn't my first language, I'm going to have to look the spelling of their names up. I'll post that info here later. Here is a link to the website for her collection Resurrection.

I was scheduled to interview Lie Bong Sang but tonight everyone was in hyper mode tonight. Even though I had no problem with waiting for him, between parties that were happening later on, lots of peer pressure and a bit of fatigue from the people working there, I didn't get a chance to speak with him tonight. However, I'm hoping I'll be able to track him down sometime soon. We'll see.

Here is video from the end of the Lie Bong Sang show.

I'll be taking Friday off. The general buzz is this weekend is what's going to be kickin'. Tomorrow there will be no fashion week shows for me, but there will be fashion week parties this evening for sure.

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Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Seoul Fashion Week, Day Two

Update: October 25, 2008 @ 3:30pm

Grrrrrrrrrrrrr...for some reason Google has indexed this particular post pretty high up when you search for "Seoul Fashion Week". That means people are landing on a page from the March 2008 F/W shows.

Click HERE to get to all the posts in reverse chronological order (basically, the most recent post is first).

Thanks for stopping by too ;)
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I had to work today, so I was only able to make it to a couple of the evening shows at Seoul Fashion Week. I figured today would be really good as it was the last day for men's fashion. It pretty much was.

I had a chance to see two shows, Choi Bum Suk, 최범석, and Song Zio, 송지오. I also had a chance to interview both of them. Those interviews will find their way to the FeetManSeoul site soon.

The treat was the great fashion but also the celebrities showing up. The problem is I keep a far distance the celebrity thing. I know who my favorites are, but, beyond that, I wouldn't know a Korean celebrity if one was right in front of me. It's happened a few times that I've met someone socially not knowing who they were and the people around me are frantically either trying to act cool or they're trying to get me up to speed so that I know I'm talking to so-and-so. I like being wonderfully clueless about the celebrity world. If it's someone I've met a few times over, they seem to appreciate that I don't seem to care much about their notoriety.

One bad thing and this is a constant in Korea with just about every international event: the English is horrible. Because the shows are scheduled so close together, when I've signed up to interview a designer I'll pretty much miss the next show. That means I had time to go through the Lookbook and the designer's concept booklet. Both were over flowing with errors. Seoul Fashion Week is still developing and the designs are so good that I'm sure they'll get more international attention with each show. I just hope that for the next one they hire a competent English editor. (Hint, hint...I'm free.)

I'm not even going to compare the two shows I saw. The designers were totally different and both shows had wonderful clothes.

Choi Bum Suk's, show was very young and fresh. It had a classic rustic influence with lots of plaids and traditional winter patterns, but he changed up the dimensions and jazzed the clothes up with lots of color. This video clip is of the start of his show.

Me and 최범석

Song Zio's show was much more dynamic but structured. He stuck to primary colors, like black and white.

Me and 송지오

The colors he did use were subdued taupes, olive greens and grays. He also had a great treat as two of the models were Korean celebrities.

The crowd gasped and the flashes went off as Cha Seung-won, 차승원, started off the show and there were more gasps as Kim Heung-soo, 김흥수, was at the end of the cycle.

Cha Seung-won

Here is video of the end of Song Zio show. Mr. Cha is the first model and Mr. Kim is the last model.

Sorry for the over exposure in both videos. I think between my bad photography skills and tons of flashes going off, it's just how it is.

I'll be taking tomorrow off from the shows, so I'll give another update on Thursday. The women's collections I'm sure are going to be tons of fun to see too.

Okay, it's been another long day and it's time for bed.

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Monday, March 17, 2008

Seoul Fashion Week, Day One

I've spent the whole day running around Seoul. First, just on personal business. However, I got to the Seoul Fashion Week in the afternoon and had the best time.

Now I've come to finally admit I'm a horrible photographer. However, someone did take a shot of me and designer Han Seung-soo, 한승수. So I can prove I was there ;)

Today was the start of the event and it will go through next Monday. Today and tomorrow will feature men's clothing.

Out of the shows I saw today, my love was the "beyond closet" collection by Ko Tae Yong, 고태용. As stated though, I suck at photography, so keep tabs on the FeetManSeoul website for the pictures.

Here is the start of the "beyond closet" show. The camera is a hand held and it's askew, so forgive me. But, from it, you can catch a quick glimpse of some of the stuff I saw today:

Okay, it's late and I'm tired. I've got to work tomorrow and then I'll get myself over to see the last shows tomorrow.

Here is a shot I found of his show...very nice, no?

FMS has some great shots of Ko Tae Yong's show too.
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Here is a funny update. I finally got this pic Mike, aka the Metropolitician and FeetManSeoul, took of me and Korean celebrity Hong Suk Chun. I know Mr. Hong from socializing way too much at his restaurants. Only at an event like this or San Francisco would I be at risk of getting felt up by a gay man ;)