Vol.106_USED FUTURE
USED FUTURE
SPRING SUMMER 2017
Editor_Jiyoung Oh
Could you please introduce us about your brand?
Our brand is a male brand based on youth culture, started in 2009.
It’s been eight years since the launch, how do you think you led the brand for those past years?
There has been a lot of things that has happened actually. I tried to manage the brand around business but we encountered difficulties since there was not much of an attention towards domestic brands at that time. It was also difficult because I was the only person managing the brand. But now there are a lot of friends giving me the help I need, more professionals working in our company so it is going well. There were quite a few changes during the past years but now we have distinct concept and color for our brand.
I assume that there will be a lot of concerns and thoughts going into design process, such as the philosophy of the brand, viewpoint of a designer, seasonal changes, trends and etc. How do you get to the common ground?
There are things that we learn naturally, rather than going after the latest trends. I think it is about what you are currently doing or not. What’s most important for the brand is creating products that suits our brand. So we all openly discuss our opinions and find that common ground.
I would say the most representative item of USED FUTURE is knit. Is it planned to use ‘thread’ as one of the main materials?
I had a lot of interest in knit even before I was starting this brand. I thought having a knit designer within us would be better than producing one through a production. Just in time, knit designer that I used to know in my previous work told me that he just quit the job so I immediately asked to join our company. First of all, unlike other fabric, you can start with the fabric itself which is directly going to become the product. You can also create the color that you want and the texture that you want. It gives a lot more freedom in designing compare to other fabrics.
It is really popular among women although it is menswear. Do you have any plan on launching a women’s wear?
We actually hear a lot of this, so we have actually tried.. but I do not think this idea going any further in the near future. However, I am very thankful that it is popular among women.
What message do you want to put out through USED FUTURE?
When I started off the brand, domestic designer brands were in a very limited situation. There were really only a few designer brands practicing collections, and few street brands were all of the categories we had. What I wanted to do through USED FUTURE is to set up a solid brand identity.
I visited your new showroom and there were full of ‘UFU collection’. What is the difference between original collections and UFU collection?
If our original collection is progressive, UFU(used future universal) is more universal in design. We would update UFU in between of each seasons, that’s the concept of it. It is more of a line that shows what we are interested in. So we are having so much fun with designing and the response is exceeding out expectation.
What is the concept for SPRING SUMMER 2017 collection?
We don’t necessarily have a certain concept for every season. We work in the ‘collage’ way, rather than having the same color way and fabric variation which started from one mood board. We tend to create a combination that is most contrary to each other in images, fabric and color.
Especially, the video called ‘SPRING SUMMER 2017’ was so strong and impressive. How did you create this video and with what concepts?
We actually have USED FUTURE, grav , laypoetry, nightandwater, and more brands in the same building. They are all very talented, professional in their own field and are very close friends. We did our first collaboration with nightandwater because they are in media related industry. We discussed which direction we will go towards. We wanted the clothes itself to be used as object rather than the person. We talked about Daniel Turner’s works as references as well. At the end, our focus was on this metallic material of the clothes. It was my first time shooting a video so I was really curious how it will turn out, but it came so much cooler than I thought so I was relieved and thought it was a good idea that we did a collaboration. Taehyun Choi, who I used to really like, allowed us to used his music without hesitation so we were thankful .
What are you interested in these days?
Health.
What is your plan for 2017?
We are planning to focus on international market because it’s been showing great response. We are planning to do a pop-up store internationally and also domestically.
grav.kr
laypoetry.kr
nightandwater.com