Have you heard of ‘Exclusive’ fashion brand? Have you heard of ‘Kang Sung-do’? Kang Sung-do is a designer who is known for appearing in a designing audition broadcast. Last year, he launched the brand ‘Exclusive’ and the brand became famous. The reason is his design style. He doesn’t create new designs. He just thinks differently based on original and common designs. The CBT met Kang Sung-do, who is a young and capable designer. -Ed
 
Satisfaction of living as a professor and a designer
  “When I was young, design was all I could do, but now my design has become something real. Every time my designs come true as I expected, I’m really happy. I can feel achievement and satisfaction. That is the most impressive time, so I can’t pick one impressive experience or time. A work which gave me these feelings recently was ‘Air-black jacket’. It was a work from my first collection, which was held last year.”
  His collection, which was held in November of last year, was successful, but during the preparation process, there was big trouble.
  “I ordered pants by my design from factory, but they made them wrong. The pants were too tight, so I couldn’t use them. The expense of making the pants was 3 million won. That was a lot of money to me. All I could do was just comfort myself with small talk like, ‘I don’t have to care about it. It is just out of my range.’ Next, I negotiated with the factory, and we each paid half.”
  I asked about his life as a designer and professor. Actually, when people heard he became a professor in a university, people had lots of worries. They thought that he would spend his time teaching students, so he wouldn’t have time to design.
  “The class is once a week, so I’m not as busy as people thought. Thus, three times a month, students come to my office. Recently, I checked their graduation work. My work is giving some advice to students so that their works get better. I can develop their values and abilities. I contact students almost every day using my e-mail or text messages.”
  He seemed to have much affection for his works, so I asked him if he could go back to university period, would he still choose to become a designer. Surprisingly, his answer was ‘No’.
“I want to be a cook. I would enter either ‘Le Cordon Blue’ or ‘CIA’. Both are included as famous top 10 food schools. Being a cook is attractive because I can see the customers’ responses directly.  I have a friend who manages a restaurant, so I would sometimes go there and cook by myself. A stable job like a public servant is not suitable for me. Living in America, I was more interested in new things, and I’m adventurous, so trying new works is more familiar for me, thinking like, ‘Just try this’.”
  He has future plans.
  “I like silk best because its soft and smooth texture makes me feel good. However, Koreans are focused on its difficulty of managing this fabric when it is used for clothing. Therefore, silk is rarely used as a fabric for clothes. I will take advantage of the silk by maximizing its merits. In addition I want to collaborate with Jung Ouk-june, also known as JUUN. J, and Christopher Cavin.”
 
3 turning points of life: mother’s effort, Chanel fashion show, TV appearance
  Kang Sung-do’s life can be divided into 3 turning points. The first was his mother’s effort. She was a really strong mother. After she found out her son was deaf, she taught him lip reading, so he could converse like other people. Also, she gave him an opportunity to study art for his future life. Due to his mother’s help, he could grow strongly.
  The second turning point was his decision to become a designer.
  “I was in California. I accidentally saw the Chanel fashion show on TV. It was a big shock to me. A gorgeous stage, colorful costumes and Karl Lagerfeld’s appearance on the finale all caught my fancy. Then I thought, “I want to be like that man. Then, I enrolled in Parsons School of Design.”
  After spending time in the United States in college, he came to Korea. Then, he met the third turning point. Although he is a famous and busy designer now, he faced a big hardship after coming to Korea.
  “I wanted to enter into a fashion-related company. However, I got a ‘No’ from all of companies where I applied. I thought the reason why I was rejected from them was my disability, so I decided to show them a disabled person can have a good talent. That’s why I applied for the designing audition broadcast.”
  Appearing on that TV program, he could show his abilities and he was recognized by many designers. People started to know his name, and he became one of the role models for disabled people. His aim to give a big shock to Koreans who have prejudices against disabled people was successful. After that, he did a lot of collaboration with many famous brands like ‘Lovcat’, ‘Suecomma bonnie’, ‘Wonder place’, ‘Kolon’ etc.
  Hardship living in Korea as a fashion designer
  He told a realistic problem as an answer to the question about the difficulty of working as a designer in Korea. There are different standards between partterners who live in Korea and those who live in overseas countries. Patterners who live in overseas countries have strong adventurous spirits, so they don’t care about the trials and errors. That’s why they can create many new patterns or designs. However, Koreans cannot. Most of them are focusing on short time profits. That’s why they don’t invest in difficult patterns or designs.
  “I’m really upset presently. To live in Korea as a designer, we should be concerned about the patterners’ preference, so it is hard to focus on my work. If I didn’t care about them, my work couldn’t keep going. They say, ‘It is too difficult’ or ‘I can’t allow it’. In other words, good designers must have an ability to read a patterners’ mind and an ability to persuade patterners. To develop these abilities, designers must know world trends and study related knowledge like reading lots of magazines and visiting other designers’ blogs. If not, there is a possibility to get left behind, and they might miss the opportunity to realize their designs.
 
A few necessary things to know about becoming a designer
  “If you want to become a designer, you should ask yourself whether you really want to become a designer. The reason is that this work is not as simple as you guys think. The job of a designer looks like a shining occupation, but frankly speaking, it is really harder work than you imagine. To say nothing of designing, a designer should look for fabrics, of course sew the fabrics, meet patterners, go to factories and so on. 24 hours are not enough time for us, so we work most days, all day and night. Postponing plans are frequent to us. It means designers must have patience.”
  In addition, he wants students to be more open to hardship.
  “If you have a desire to be a designer, you must be open to hardships. There are lots of hardships when you prepare to be a designer and after you become a designer. These hardships push you a lot and give lots of stress, but it also helps you overcome your limitations and raises your values. These days, many companies want designers who have more various abilities than only a designing ability. It tells that you should study photoshop, power point, excel etc. It can be hard to study not only designing but also other areas, but it will strengthen your competitiveness.”

By Lee Da-yeon
dy34@cbnu.ac.kr

By Lee Jun-ho
jh35@cbnu.ac.kr