Eudon Choi has always had a knack for practicality, never letting his more conceptual flights of fancy distract him from the essential matter of making wearable clothes. Still, it was refreshing to see his pragmatism come to the fore in a collection that picked up the thread of his pared-back pre-fall offering, and developed further. It’s a sentiment that’s resonating right now, with many already noting that this season’s New York shows served as a kind of recentering for some designers who had bounced back from the pandemic with a more extravagant, devil-may-care attitude.
“It feels really nice to streamline and just focus on the clothing and remember why I do what I do,” said Choi. “I’ve been really enjoying it.” (Another nod to Big Apple style? The setting in the OXO Tower overlooking the Thames. With its floor-to-ceiling panoramic windows as a backdrop, the atmosphere had more in common with a New York show held at nosebleed heights in a glass-walled skyscraper than it did with typical London venues.)
If that makes it sound a little too sensible, know that despite the more minimal trappings of some of the designs, the origins of their inspiration were actually fairly maximalist. There were allusions to 15th and 16th century doublet jackets (a handful of Tudor portraits from the National Portrait Gallery were on the moodboard) echoed in slashed puff sleeves and decorative fastenings, while intentional dashes of sportswear were thrown in via sweaters featuring ribbed, varsity jacket-style mock necks and loosely fitted track pants in both gray jersey and light, airy corduroys. The tailoring, too, had a breezier quality this season. “I really enjoyed going back to thinking about building a wardrobe last season,” Choi said. “Instead of starting with, ‘This is the story,’ we started with the details: a sleeve, or a hem, or a waistline.” Consider this collection another set of smart, adaptable pieces to be added to his customer’s arsenal.
So too has Choi continued making quiet forays into pieces that traverse the boundaries of gender, harking back to his initial training in Seoul as a menswear designer. “Our business is still based on womenswear, but some looks can be worn for boys,” Choi said, noting that, in reality, every look could be worn by all genders. The adjustability of Choi’s clothes helps where that’s concerned, with the functional ability to cinch or loosen certain pieces according to the realities of our mutable, ever-shifting body shapes.
Does he ever see someone wearing his clothes in a permutation that had never even occurred to him when designing it? “Yes, and I love that,” said Choi. “It’s like origami: it looks simple, but there are so many different ways of doing it.” What Choi loves witnessing most is watching younger members of his design team try on and connect with the clothes in a way they haven’t with some of the more mature, highfalutin pieces in seasons past. Added Choi: “They’re really relating to these collections, and that’s exciting to see.”
