Prada’s tenth iteration of Prada Mode takes place in Seoul — “Plural and Parallel” taps on three esteemed directors to explore the vision of contemporary cinema through each director’s idiosyncratic lens, as curated by Lee Sook-Kyung.
As much as fashion is about celebrating heritage houses, its founding fathers and legacies, we can’t quite set aside the surrounding cultural movements that give these developments its social salience. Since 2018, Prada has taken it upon themselves to celebrate its creative cultural periphery via Prada Mode, which is an itinerant private club that gives members a unique and curated experience of contemporary culture via special programs and content that examine that through its host countries’ lens.
After travelling from Miami to places like Hong Kong, Paris, London, Dubai and Tokyo, Prada Mode’s tenth iteration took place in Seoul to conicide with Frieze Seoul — undoubtedly the main country of interest for all things fashion and culture today. Curated by Lee Sook-Kyung, an established curator, lecturer and writer who has played a leading role in raising the profile of Korean art across the world, Prada Mode Seoul transforms the buildings of cultural venue KOTE into a experiential and multi-dimensional destination for guests to explore the different universes through the eyes and lenses of Kim Jee-Woon, Yeon Sang-ho, and Jeong Dahee, each an established director of significant contemporary Korean pictures.
Over the span of two days, the three dedicated spaces brought to life film sets or extrapolated themes from projects and turned them into multi-sensory experience exhibits, hosting conversations that dove further into these spatial explorations of culinary culture, absence, and mortality.
On the first day, “Crossing Boundaries: Yeon Sang-ho’s Universe” by Yeon Sang-ho and Yang Ik-june, explored how Yeon Sang-ho’s work “Hellbound” transcended the boundaries of film, webtoon, a Netflix series and now, a physical installation. “Kim Jee-Woon’s Films: Space and Objects” by director Kim Jee-Woon and Korean film critic Ju Sung-chul addressed the idea of “space objects” in his films in the context of architectural space, especially in his installation at Prada Mode Seoul, which focused on fading memories that remain in certain objects or places as residue and catalysts for nostalgia.
The last talk, “Drawing Poetry: Metaphors in Jeong Dahee’s Films” by director Jeong Dahee and film critic Kim Haery looked at the director’s animated films in the context of the current international cinema landscape, focusing on their unique formal quality, psychological undertones, and surreal narratives all in her library space into a room of drawings, lights, and shadows. For all the Korean things that pop culture at present is obsessed with, this event, which also featured DJ sets and live musical performances accompanied with nostalgic bites, makes the case for a cultural heritage well infused into what makes style tick today.
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