The theme of this project is ‘Mi:in’ (미인), which means ‘a beauty’ in Korean. Beauty is that what millinery is about: hats are accessories that decorate women to show their beauty. That is the thought behind my personal focus on women and beauty. For this project, I would like to use the knowledge and milliner skills I have developed in London and fuse them with my personal roots and cultural background in Korean culture. That is the reason for using special material, knowledge, stories and symbols that originate from my home country Korea.

 

Korean art is relatively unknown in the Western world: for many people in the world Korean cultural expressions still stand in the shadows of Chinese and Japanese art and crafts. With this project I would like to change this and show the uniqueness of Korean art to the world. Although Korean artist expressions are not that well-known, I would like to use millinery to make other people feel its special expression. My project represents the balance between my idea of universal beauty and traditional/ local Korean cultural expression. Therefore I use the historical Korean figure of gisaeng (beauty) as my starting point.