Boon the Shop is a high-end concept store in Seoul’s Cheongdam neighborhood, stocked with brands like Dries Van Noten and Raf Simons’s latest for Calvin Klein. Yet this week, in the boutique’s basement, 99%IS-’s Bajowoo staged a standout show, whose punk spirit felt distinctly antiestablishment. It’s a juxtaposition that the Tokyo-based designer chose to create for Spring 2018, his second outing in his hometown of Seoul and his first after establishing a proper studio and showroom here. The floors were lined with black tarp and the runway was filled with scattered pools of water. Blue and green lights cast an eerie color on the space, meant to evoke dawn the day after a rainstorm.
Stepping through the glass doors, medieval court music played, gentle trumpets and lutes. The crowd was a mix of tattooed punks and businessmen in suits, along with friends like Akimoto Kozue and Sandara Park. Looking back at his archive, Bajowoo felt a bit tired of typical punk style tropes—the studded leather jackets he’s long been known for—and decided to step in an entirely new direction, titling the lineup Make the Future Now. To an abstract percussive score by Hyuk Oh, a single man drifted down the runway, the hood of his black rain parka pulled and cinched entirely across his face. The second wore a neat red button-down and pants in the same waterproof nylon, a nod to punk coming through in the zippers running down the pant legs, though they were streamlined in black. The models walked with a slow, stuttered gait, as though they were diseased or had only just woken.
Through this lineup, Bajowoo sought to create a newer, original brand of punk style, and his appropriation of anoraks and other practical outdoor gear felt rather subversive. It also looked much more polished and grown-up—a sign of his intent to take 99%IS- to that next level (hence the suits in the front row). Iridescent silver nylon jackets gleamed prettily in the light, and there were pants puckered by dozens of bungee cords. A blue and red Lurex tracksuit featured a cheetah print so subtle, it flickered in and out of view on the runway. Some models walked barefoot; others wore leather Converse shielded by cool black buckled rain boot covers, done in collaboration with friend and designer Yuul Yie. It was a particularly strong, tightly edited collection for Seoul. Here and abroad, all eyes are suddenly on Bajowoo, and he is ready to capitalize on this momentum—a jacket with jigeum, the Korean word for now, spray-painted in hot pink on its back, said it all.
