Everyday Runway: Asian Street Fashion and Beyond

Seoul, Korea
sat, February 09, 2008

hello, dears

this is Hong Sukwoo, founder and photographer of yourboyhood,. I joined C33 Gallery, Columbia College Chicago what an exhibition about 'Asian Street Fashion and Beyond'. If you live so close to Chicago, please visit the exhibition.

Everyday Runway: Asian Street Fashion and Beyond
March 10 – April 25, 2008
C33 Gallery, Columbia College Chicago
33 E. Congress, Chicago, IL
Opening Reception: March 13, 5-7 pm

The way people dress represents a huge statement about whom they are and this idea of fashion as self-expression especially in Asia has produced some of the most innovative fashion styles in recent years. In fact, today’s cutting edge fashion often emerges from these so-called “streets” as more and more people including fashion designers and even pop star Gwen Stefani now look to Japanese street culture and its fast-forward, bold and creative mix of East and West, high and low, couture and homemade and everything that comes in between for inspiration.

Join us on a photographic journey through the streets of Asia and America and meet people who have embraced and remixed the global fashion today. Through garments, accessories, videos, fashion magazines, illustrated personal stories as well as photographs, this exhibit provides a snapshot of the fast-changing look of street fashion while reflecting on the formation, display and performance of Asian urban aesthetic and youth identity and its influence on American popular culture.

Though greatly influenced by Western fashion, many Asian street fashion styles become distinctive in how unique cultural and individual twists are added to make them much cooler and refreshingly avant-garde. With a blend of punk, rap, hip hop, sneaker culture, kawaii (cuteness), bodikon (body-conscious), Otaku (animate/manga obsession), Goth-Lolita and other exotic or futuristic imaginations, Asian street fashion is practically impossible to define.

However, there is much more to Asian street fashion than the images of youngsters in Victorian dresses, full-body costumes of imaginary animals, heavy make-up and weird clothes or the names of Japanese designers cited in Harajuku Lovers. This exhibit also features a wide array of works by photographers, designers and street artists as well as collaborations with local collectors and boutiques. We hope to capture the urban, cosmopolitan and multicultural spirit of street fashion in Japan and Korea while taking a look at the trends and influences of street fashion in American pop culture. A section of the exhibit is also devoted to works by Asian American artists using street fashion as a medium for further artistic and conceptual exploration.

Artists Moe Sekiya and Take Yoshimoto show us the legendary Harajuku district and streets of Tokyo renowned for its youth style and fashion. Hong Sukwoo, photographer and fashion journalist based in Seoul, Korea strolls the streets of Seoul spotting the young, hip chic fashionistas as well as the old man who with the pink Nike sneakers and the cute kid in the flea market. In her performance-based photographic series, Asian American artist Susan Lee-Chun explores identity politics and assimilation through humorous interaction between two fictional characters—the conformist Sue in schoolgirl uniforms and the comical, animated Sioux in outrageous expressive fashion pieces.

Organized by the Center for Asian Arts and Media and presented in collaboration with C-Spaces, the exhibit runs from March 10 through April 25, 2008 at Columbia College’s C33 Gallery. An artist shoe painting competition will also take place in conjunction with the exhibit. An opening reception will be held on March 13 from 5 to 7 pm. Audiences are encouraged to dress up in their favorite street fashion style.

http://cms.colum.edu/cspaces/c33_gallery/