Why Seoul’s Resident Cool Candlemaker Dresses to Defy Korean Conventions
Soohyang Kim felt destined to make scents from birth. The South Korean creative director’s name translates roughly to “excellent fragrance,” which made it an uncannily excellent choice for a namesake home fragrance line. Though her all-natural products have global appeal—stocked at shops like I.T Hong Kong and now Barneys on Madison Avenue—they have been directly informed by her cultural backdrop of Seoul. Each little white candle comes wrapped in a baby pink label with an evocative name like Gangnam 8, an olfactory translation (nutmeg, cloves, orchids) of the nouveau riche neighborhood; or Secret Garden, the title of a wildly popular Korean TV drama from 2010, which blends rose, hyacinth, and violet.
For Kim, fragrances are more interdisciplinary than they seem. On her website, she compares their creation and curation to art forms like music and fashion: “Like an outfit that fits perfectly, or a moving piece of music, a sensitively chosen fragrance carries a special meaning.” This isn’t just a convenient analogy; before she started her candle business, Kim pursued a career in music, working as a planner and designer at a local record company. She also puts a great deal of thought into her personal style, which is surprisingly free-spirited for South Korea; to put a finer point on it, she does not shy away from showing skin. In fact, she revels in it.
Growing up in Gwangju, a city in the southwest, Kim felt uninspired by the small-mindedness she encountered each day. Friends and neighbors always pointed out her unusual manner of dress. “Unique—I would hear that word all the time,” she says. Even when she moved to Seoul to study advertising and public relations, strangers continued to single her out, as she walked the streets more exposed than her peers, who tend to prefer more conservative pieces—a white T-shirt layered beneath a sundress, say, or an oversize hoodie.
Kim has a penchant for silk slips (worn day or night), crop tops, and backless gowns, most often in a head-turning shade like bright red or candy pink. “I’ve always been fond of revealing a bit of skin,” says Kim. “It’s incredibly liberating.” She claims a resistance to cold, so even in winter, she won’t wear tights. One can imagine the shock of seeing a young Korean woman in such body-conscious clothes; people stare on the street, she says, but she claims that more women than men actually come up and engage with her. Kim thinks it’s due to a vicarious desire to understand her mode of self-expression, which is not a case of exhibitionism. Kim’s skin-baring, overtly feminine style defines her. “I always wear dresses, even if I’m alone,” she says. “I’m never wearing T-shirts or pants at home.”
To assemble her fun and flirty outfits, Kim is also guided, she says, by the harmony of yin and yang, the fundamental Chinese philosophical concept that posits that everything has an inseparable and contradictory opposite. For Kim, this concept applies to her closet, such that her outerwear must balance what she wears underneath it. “Clothes with warm energy like leather, fur, and wool are best when they’re balanced with delicate materials like silk and cotton, or camisoles and crop tops,” Kim says. So if she’s going to wear a bright color, which is associated with the qualities of yang, she’ll pair it with a more neutral silk scarf to capture the yin. “The entire universe is made up of forces of yin and yang,” she says, “and I believe if you keep this in mind when picking your attire, it falls through harmoniously.”
To find that harmony in your own closet—or just a bit of vicarious fashion joy—take a look at Kim’s everyday style. A slip dress at home, Tabi boots at the candle factory: Here’s a young woman, dressing to please only herself.
