Andy (Seungjoo) Kim’s Neighbourhood: Korean Tradition in Fashion and Film

October 21, 2026

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Words by:

Samantha Park

On the veranda of his grandparents’ home, there were always potted orchids. When Andy (Seungjoo) Kim asked his grandmother why, she told him that orchids stand for integrity and blessing, grown by families hoping for the well-being of the household. “It was a small detail, but it visualised an entire image of caring for a home,” he says.

That detail now lives inside Neighbourhood, a Cornell University project that asks what traditional Korean neighbourhoods would look like had they persisted into the present day. It unfolds as a fashion collection, a fashion film and a lookbook, joined by an original soundtrack on vinyl.

Model in a blue layered vest and high-waisted tan trousers standing in an old Seoul alley, from Andy (Seungjoo) Kim's Neighbourhood lookbook

Originally from Seoul, Kim has since lived and studied in the UK, the US and Canada, working across art direction, filmmaking, photography and fashion design. “They are all means of communication,” he says. Fashion, though, is the most direct. “It is the first thing that we reveal to others,” he explains.

The question behind Neighbourhood took shape abroad. When Kim first studied in the UK, many peers knew little about Korea. Then Korean pop culture spread worldwide, and he sensed that the image it created was not the whole picture. “What you see on Korean streets today is a country moving at great speed, and at that pace many traces of the past have quietly faded: the architecture, the fashion, the pastimes,” he says.

It was distance, rather than a deep family story, that drew him in. “Having lived among so many cultures, I could move back and forth through time and place and reinterpret the traditions with a fresh pair of eyes,” he says. He found tradition where it still lives: in the antiques at his grandparents’ house, and in museums, where docents patiently answered his questions.

Full-length view of a model in a blue vest and wide high-waisted tan trousers outside low houses on a Seoul hillside

Model in a red jacket with a dark wrapped panel standing against a blue door and striped wall

Kim narrowed his research to seven references for seven looks: giwa, the clay roof tiles of traditional Korean architecture; the orchid; the teapot and Korea’s tea-drinking culture; the stork; two-dimensional garment construction; the high-waisted line of Korean garments; and talchum, the traditional mask dance. “I wanted my collection to be diverse because a neighbourhood is diverse,” he says. What ties them together is the unadorned everyday. The high waistline, for instance, suited a life lived close to the floor, keeping the legs free.

Model spreading the wide black and yellow panels of a cream look against a pale sky

Model in a brown suit with a red collar and red socks standing in a doorway beside potted plants

He places these references onto suits, shirts and coats, the shared wardrobe found on streets everywhere. “If that wardrobe is a big canvas, then the orchid, the giwa roof and my other references become the subject, the colour and the brushstrokes that give each look its character,” he says.

The giwa look shows how literal that translation can be. Giwa roofs curve gently, their eaves sweeping outwards and rising at the corners so that a hanok sits in harmony with the mountain ridges behind it. Kim treats the look as the architecture and the body as nature. On a long pink coat, the lapels fold and fasten to reveal a lapel-shaped panel, the two outlines forming one unbroken curve. A pink and burgundy silk shirt carries a digitally printed giwa roof pattern, and when the wearer slips their hands into its pockets, the line flows from arm to arm like lifted eaves.

Model in the giwa look, a long pink coat over a printed pink and burgundy silk shirt, on a rooftop above Seoul at dusk

Below, matte wool felt hovers over a lustrous black lining, tracing the ridge of a single tile. “When the wearer moves, the layers move with them,” he explains, and the contrast makes the fabric seem almost alive.

Two models by a brick wall at night, one in a long grey layered look and one in the pink giwa coat with black layered trousers

Model in a long dark grey vest and layered trousers leaning against a white house with a tiled roof

The film was never an afterthought. Kim wrote the screenplay while designing the collection. “I believe that a collection’s theme is hard to absorb from the garments alone, and if the clothes only follow a film, they lose room to express themselves,” he says. Because the clothes would mostly be seen on screen, he reduced each reference to its essential form. The orchid became layers of long, narrow leaves, built as layered garments.

Model in a cream look with black panels walking down narrow stone steps between houses

Model in a sage layered shirt and tan trousers crouching under a green awning

The silent film, which Kim wrote, directed, shot and edited, follows Hyejin Park, 24, a new apparel design graduate whose individuality blurs in a standardised world until she is labelling paper bags. She meets Hwa, Ran and Do, who lead her towards passion, freedom and self-determination. Each wears a look from the collection, a trace of the streets of the past. “I am not suggesting which path is right,” Kim says. “As a designer and director, I want to open a conversation.”

Still from the Neighbourhood fashion film showing a masked figure in a red jacket raising an arm beside traditional tiled roofs

Still from the Neighbourhood fashion film showing a white glass marble resting on a stone ledge above a blurred sunlit street

Poster for the Neighbourhood fashion film showing characters meeting in a street, with the film title across the bottom

Red illustrated poster for the Neighbourhood fashion film with figures on a curving white line and characters playing below

Sound marks the crossing. In the score by composer Jun Heo, the gayageum, a traditional Korean string instrument played by Hyang Rho, appears only in scenes set in the imagined neighbourhood, while violin, piano and flute carry the rest. A collector of soundtracks on vinyl, from Minari to 2001: A Space Odyssey, Kim released his own the same way. “Releasing the soundtrack on vinyl lets the film live on, long after the screen goes dark,” he says.

The red Neighbourhood original soundtrack vinyl sleeve beside a white record on concrete steps

Alternate Neighbourhood soundtrack vinyl sleeve with a red photographic cover beside a white record

With limited budget, crew and time, the hardest part was bringing people together. Kim held rounds of interviews and meetings so everyone could share what they believed in. “For something of this scale, I believe that it is crucial for everyone to believe in the same thing,” he says.

High view down a narrow Seoul street lined with wires and greenery, a model walking in the distance

The turning point came gradually. His earlier collections kept culture within clothing, until he saw that every part of a culture reflects how people live. “Moving from everyday apparel to everyday lifestyle was the turning point for Neighbourhood, as well as for my overarching creative direction,” he says. Having spent about as long outside Korea as inside it, he feels “warmth and familiarity on the one hand, distance and fascination on the other,” a mix he hopes his audience shares.

Next comes Familyhood, which explores what family means in traditional Korean culture. A fan of film trilogies, Kim calls it a duology for now, with hope of a third collection someday.

In Neighbourhood, the streets of the past are not rebuilt as they were. They are allowed to keep evolving, carried into the present one roof curve and one orchid leaf at a time.

A model in a brown suit crouches by potted plants while another walks past in the foreground in a yellow and black look

Credits

Lookbook
Designer and Art Director: Andy (Seungjoo) Kim @kimseungjoo_andykim
Photographer: Seung Kwon Choi @roha_choi_
Models: Jae Sung Lim @j_lm.00, Eunjin Cho @choejeda
Support: Ji Yeop Kim @kim_ji_yeop, Eunhye Kim @lookjida_studio

Fashion Film
Director, Writer and Producer: Andy (Seungjoo) Kim
Executive Producer: Sangbum Kim
Key Cast: Hajin Song as “Hyejin Park”, Kagiri Peris Nyawira as “Hwa”, Enrico Ennes as “Ran”, Jeonghoon Baek as “Do”
Director of Photography: Andy (Seungjoo) Kim
Editor: Andy (Seungjoo) Kim
Production Designer: Andy (Seungjoo) Kim
Fashion and Costume Designer: Andy (Seungjoo) Kim
Music Composer: Jun Heo
Gayageum Artist: Hyang Rho
Concept Artist: Minjoo Kim
Assistant Producer: Young Ju An
Assistant Director: Young Ju An
Background Actors: Hongkyun Song, Jaesang Lim, Seongwook Bang, Seongmin Bang, Hyein Lee, Minjae Chung, Doyoung An
Casting Director: Andy (Seungjoo) Kim
Casting Associate: Young Ju An
Assistant Camera: Jung Min Kang
Gaffer: Jung Jae Lee
Best Boy Electric: Ji Eun Jeon
Location Manager: Andy (Seungjoo) Kim
Transportation Coordinator: Jung Min Kang
Lead Production Assistant: Jung Min Kang
Script Interpreter: Soorim Hahn
Production Assistants: Soorim Hahn, Minjoo Kim
Neighbourhood Film Instagram: @neighbourhood.film