Miss Sohee.
Although 2020 turned out to be a triumph for Sohee Park, the future wasn’t looking so rosy in the first half of the year. A student on the Central Saint Martins Fashion BA, as she approached the end of her course the college cancelled the graduate show and closed its studios in response to the pandemic. Sohee was left to complete her graduate collection in her flat in East London: five ball gowns that combined body-hugging curvaceousness with extravagant puffed-up volumes and giant flower-like forms playing Alice in Wonderland games with scale. ‘That first collection, they’re all my dream dresses,’ says Sohee. ‘I’ve been dreaming of them since childhood.’ She launched the collection on Instagram on 2 July with a shoot starring model Georgie Hobday. ‘What really touched me was, when I first reached out to Georgie on Instagram, I sent her a picture of the pink and green dress, and she wrote back, “That’s my childhood dream dress!” in capital letters. So I think – I hope – a lot of other girls and women feel the same way too when they look at my work.’
Sohee was not prepared for the speed and scale of the adulation that would greet that collection. Within a week Christian Cowan had invited her to collaborate on looks for his show in New York September. Within a month three full looks had featured on the cover of Love magazine shot by Rasharn Agyemang. ‘And from that I got loads of requests. I’m just really forever grateful.’ Miley Cyrus performed on Britain’s most-watched chat show on a set decorated with life-size images of the singer in one of Sohee’s dresses. Then Cardi B wore another look for her ‘Woman of the Year’ cover of Billboard magazine. The impact of Sohee’s vision was already reaching beyond London and beyond fashion, shaping popular culture internationally.
Like the imaginings that shaped her sensibility, the name of Sohee’s label comes from childhood too. Growing up in Seoul, South Korea, she loved to draw and paint from an early age, signing each work ‘Miss Sohee’. Her mother is a successful writer and illustrator of children’s books in Korea. ‘Now that I think of it, I was hugely influenced by her, in the colours she uses, and she does a lot of flower-inspired drawings and paintings.’ Because of her college commitments and then the pandemic, it’s been two years since Sohee was last able to get back to Seoul to see her parents, who are ‘super proud’ of her, she says, even if they were reluctant to let their daughter study abroad initially. ‘When I was 18 I asked them if they could send me to London to study fashion, and they disapproved so much.’ She laughs. ‘Now I’m like, “I told you so!”
When we speak in January, Sohee is busy finishing two custom gowns for princesses in the Middle East, still working from her flat during England’s third lockdown, while getting ready to start building her second collection of made-to-order masterpieces. She is aware of the level of expectation that has been set by her stunning debut. ‘I’m very careful about what I put out there, not rushing anything, just working my best on every project.’ She is also working on ways to make her full-bloom glamour available to a wider audience. ‘I want to create a demi-couture collection, something that’s easy to wear but still has that couture aspect to it, that people can wear in their daily lives and still look as glamorous as if they were wearing a gown.’
