How Seoul-based avant-garde brand We11done carves its niche: Style chats to co-founder Jessica Jung about identity, blurring boundaries between fashion and art, and more – interview

Dec 15 , 2023

Seoul-based fashion brand We11done’s creative director and co-founder Jessica Jung. Photos: We11done

The inimitable designer of the forward-thinking brand was a part of Fashion Asia’s recent Fashion Challenges Forum – and talks to Style about its identity and direction

Ever since moving back to Seoul, Jung draws inspiration from sculptor Do Ho Suh’s work and her childhood memories in South Korea for We11done’s spring/summer 2024 collection Remnants of Home

Fashion and art, arguably two of South Korea’s most important cultural exports, come together in the clothing of We11done, the buzzy avant-garde brand that has made its mark internationally by keeping its heart close to home.

Co-founder Jessica Jung – who made a special appearance at Fashion Asia’s recent Fashion Challenges Forum presented by Hong Kong Design Centre – spent much of her career setting her sights on Paris, the world’s fashion capital. Thus, her return to Seoul for the spring/summer 2024 season sparked new questions and a direction for the brand.

We11done co-founders Dani Kwon (left) and Jessica Jung (right)

Jung – not to be confused with the former K-pop idol – attests that the term “outsider” takes on new meaning when one chooses to live outside their home country, at once becoming both a foreigner abroad and a foreigner at home.

But being an outsider in fashion has benefited Jung’s brand to some extent, as evidenced by the vote of confidence in early 2022 from venture capital firm Sequoia Capital China, which bet big on the brand – largely thanks to its dual Asian roots and eye for international markets. In Hong Kong, you can find We11done stocked in hip fashion retailer I.T.

Celebrities from the likes of Chinese actress Angelababy and mega pop star Justin Bieber are all fans, too, as seen on their Instagrams.

“Our team members, they’re Korean, but they have experience worldwide,” says Jung through her translator for the day, We11done CEO Sang Mo Kim. “They have been educated outside [Korea]. Our origin and DNA is from Seoul, but our professional experience [is] most likely from Western fashion.”

Jung launched the brand with Dani Kwon (who just so happens to be K-pop king G-Dragon’s sister) back in 2015, a year after opening Seoul-based Rare Market – a concept store that introduced many foreign brands to South Korea for the first time.