Yeojin Bae, a most famous South Korean-born fashion designer appeared in Runway 5, 2018 Virgin Australia Melbourne Fashion Festival.
“It’s been really busy but really exciting. You know the Virgin Australia Melbourne Festival is a really big part of the fashion scene in Australia.”
“It was really thrilled to be able to open runway and there is a lot of color in my collection this season.”
Yeojin says connection is the most important part for her fashion design concept.
“Women wear my dresses to celebrate lots of beautiful events in their lives and I feel quite fortunate to be part of women’s lives during these moments. So, number one is connection”
Yeojin mentions that she had dreams of becoming a fashion designer from a young age.
She has built her career with the patience of a perfectionist, starting at art school at the age of 4 in Korea.
“I think from the moment that I could speak I said I wanted to be a fashion designer. My goal was to really make the most beautiful dresses that I could imagine. I was very lucky to have parents who said ‘absolutely yes, we are going to support you’. So, I started art school very young in Korea and allowed me to follow my dreams in Australia as well.”
At age 15, she was the youngest student attending the Whitehouse Institute of Design. From that point on Bae lived and breathed fashion immersing herself in the industry working as a senior designer in Australia for 13 years and gaining valuable experience in New York with internships with Marc Jacobs and Anna Sui.
“After school, during my school holidays, more in the evening, I did extra courses. I loved to draw when I was a kid and then when I was 15 I moved straight into Fashion College full time so I did my fashion education quite young from fifteen to seventeen and then started working in the workplace since then”
After 14 years of experience within the fashion industry Yeojin felt that the time was right to launch her own brand. But it was challenging step for her.
“It was incredibly scary at first because there was the comfort staying, working with companies that had the massive support team but there was part of me that thought you’ve got to follow your dreams”
Yeojin encountered some difficulties but she had a passion for the fashion.
“A lot of people initially said that a dream run, you’ve set up this business and you’ve had such an amazing first year but what a lot of people didn’t realize was I had 14 years of working for companies prior to taking that big step”
“It was an overnight success that took 14 years of planning and I would say that the overnight success means that you definitely go through your ups and downs and learning along the way well”
“I’ve been doing this for a really long time and I spent a lot of time thinking about how wonderful is that I have this beautiful connection with woman around me”
Yeojin gave advice to Young Korean Australians who dream to become a fashion designer like her as well.
“I would say absolutely follow your dreams. I think the world needs more of us to follow our passions in life. My one advice would be that don’t be such a rush to get to any sort of finish line. There’s no end goal that we all need to rush to I think we all need to learn to enjoy the journey a little bit more so enjoy the steps there’s going to be ups and downs but the journey is actually the biggest lesson in the process and the endpoint will actually never be the end because you’ll just keep going and going”
