Korean fashion designers behind Jennie’s ‘Ruby’ look blend tradition with innovation

[INTERVIEW] 

Danahada is a common compliment for women in Korea — demure, graceful, restrained. But Leje, an audacious young label by Korean designers, favored by K-pop icon Jennie, is fashionably challenging traditional ideals by using old weapons to wage a new war.

Fusing centuries-old Korean crafts with bold silhouettes, the five-year-old brand reimagines the future of Korean female identity as confidently extravagant.

Its interpretation of femininity caught the eye of the Blackpink member, who is known to be highly meticulous with her fashion. Leje dressed her for two of her recent music videos, “Zen” and “Seoul City,” part of the artist’s first solo album, “Ruby.”

For “Zen,” a swaggering track about Jennie’s undefeatable aura, Leje’s designers turned to the Silla Dynasty (57 B.C. to 935 A.D.) and its legendary female leaders, wonhwa. Their key inspiration — a gold ornament presumed to be their crown — was reinterpreted into a sculptural top, imagining Jennie as the mythical Vermilion Bird: ethereal, fierce and phoenix-like.

The crown’s two metallic horns vertically stretch like a large bird’s wings above Jennie’s head. Its intricate weavings are constructed with over 1,000 handcrafted metal embellishments welded together, a local traditional craft known as yeongrak.

The bottom of the same outfit is an homage to salchang kojaengi, essentially undergarments worn by Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910) women during summer, beneath their hanbok (Korean traditional dress). The designers gave it an avant-garde volume and added gold and jade details.

Jennie’s glossy black and white tube top in the “Seoul City” music video, a mellow song about Seoul’s vibrancy and her connection to the city, was constructed with a 3-D printed base, then etched with mother-of-pearl inlay and lacquered.

“Korean beauty shouldn’t be limited to just being reserved and elegant,” the designers of Leje said in a recent interview with the Korea JoongAng Daily. “As history should have it, it is also over-the-top resplendent and lavishly beautiful.”

Leje, meaning “The I” in French, was formed by two ambitious couture fans, Je Yang-mo, 37, and Kang Ju-hyeong, 32, who met as aspiring fashion designers in Paris.

“It was our differences, in both personality and skill, that brought us together,” said Je, a self-professed history buff with a passion for ancient Korean craft. Kang, more detail-oriented by nature, has an eye for silhouettes, and Leje’s creatively deconstructed structures are now a brand signature.

Neither came from a design background. Je studied Chinese in high school; Kang trained as a trumpet player.

To both of them, the haute couture of the early 2000s shows, like the lavish John Galliano’s Dior shows, captivated them to veer into fashion.

They barely spoke French but moved to Paris anyway, attending language school before enrolling in fashion programs. Je went to Studio Berçot and had worked at Lanvin and Balmain before founding Leje, while Kang joined right after graduating from Esmod Paris.

Their first capsule collection, which the pair started casually, found its way into the selective fashion retailer Opening Ceremony and luxury department store Harvey Nichols.

“Once we knew what we were doing worked, there was an urgency to create more,” Kang said.

Leje quickly found its brand identity in sustainability and ancient crafts.

Its “On the Red Carpet” series, for instance, uses Korea’s traditional hand-embroidered, silky folding screens, most of which are abandoned today. The designers sought these out across the country — often crafted by unknown artisans — removed the mold, cleaned the fabric and then incorporated them into Leje’s bright red miniskirts and bustier tops for the most recent 2025 F/W collection.

Leje also recently collaborated with a metal craftsman, duseokjang, who makes fittings and handles for traditional Korean furniture.

“These traditional crafts carry a uniquely ornate beauty, which is what first got us interested in them, but as we worked with the old artisans of these crafts, we learned how jeopardized their work was,” Je said.

They have since made it a part of Leje’s mission to sustain these artisans’ work.

“In the Korean fashion scene, even basic craftsmanship, which can be highly complex, luxurious and ornate, is in danger,” said Je. “There aren’t even many people left who do simple sewing. Most are elderly, often in their 60s or older, and no new generation is willing to learn and continue the work.”

Such effort amounts to creating genre-defying pieces that simultaneously feel fashionable and timeless. While Korean fashion is familiar to the world with more wearable brands like Martin Kim, Amomento and Dunst, Leje stands out as one that merges the runway’s high fashion with the country’s iconic trendy spirit, which, for those in the know with K-fashion, Korean brands so aptly capture. Its dedication to sustainable materials, minimal chemical use and Korean craft adds unique nuances and pushes creative bounds.

Today, Leje pieces are popular among K-pop stars, like Jennie and Enhypen, as well as influencers and fashionistas in Europe and the Middle East. But its daring designs and vivid use of color have resulted in comparatively fewer sales among the public in its more fashion-conservative hometown, where dressing well often means dressing right.

“TPO — time, place, occasion — is a Korean fashion rule and common English lingo here, but it doesn’t actually exist in the English-speaking world,” Je explained.

For the women who wear Leje’s clothes, the designers want them to exude confidence in every place or situation, saying that they don’t think their clothes are “just for parties.”

Kang hopes, “Whether they’re headed to an important event, work or the grocery store, we want them to feel like the main character and say to the world: ‘Why not?’”

BY LEE JIAN [lee.jian@joongang.co.kr]