Kimdongsoon Ultimo Spring 2016 – Seoul Fashion Week

Launched in 1983, Kim Dong Soon’s brand Ultimo wowed audiences yet again after her Spring 2016 line was unveiled at Seoul Fashion Week. As one of the veteran brands showcasing its wares this year, Kim’s designs were far more conservative compared to her younger rivals but still possessed the pizzazz that her previous work had in spades.

Veering away from the street fashion that Seoul Fashion Week is well known for, the Ultimo Spring 2016 collection seemed to embrace worldly elegance with a vibrant color palette. Each outfit showcased – be it a model decked out in regal purple, sparkling gold or blood red ensembles – a woman ready for an adventure. Since Kim has stated in quite a few interviews that she finds inspirations for new designs during her trips around the world, it’s not such a stretch that the veteran designer learned long ago how to use fabric to tell a story.

In fact, one can’t help wondering if maybe Kim hadn’t seen and been inspired by Hou Hsiao Hsien’s new wuxia film “The Assassin” since the designer opened her show with the entire stage being bathed in a bluish neon glow before the runway entrance exploded in a white star burst and a lone model wearing a feather mask strutted down the runway. Both tropes, the play of color in the opening and the feather-masked model, are all found in Hou’s films and in “The Assassin” specifically.

Aside from that, dark black ensembles that featured flowing skirts and jackets dominated the latter half of the collection. Though somewhat simple on the surface, it would be foolish to pigeonhole this part of the collection as being dour or filler. The heavy use of black is utilized not just for aesthetic reasons, but also as a way to accentuate and draw attention to the form of the wearer. All in all, Ultimo scored yet another success with this collection as Kim Dong Soon continues to follow her muse wherever it takes her.