South Korean fashion designer. Her father was the head of an architectural firm, which allowed him to travel extensively, bringing home international magazines, which a young Youngmi studied, growing curious about the world outside Korea. She took up fashion studies at Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul. On graduating in 1983 she was selected to represent Korea in Japan’s Osaka International Fashion Competition, and won. In 1988, she launched the menswear brand "Solid Homme". Today there are 21 stores opened with Hyundai Group, as well as others with Lotte, Shinsegae and Galleria. In 1993, she began, along with some friends, "New Wave", a platform for young designers to show their work. This paved the way for today’s Seoul Fashion Week.
In 2002, she founded her brand "WOOYOUNGMI" which was launched in Paris. In 2014, she was named one of 500 people shaping the global fashion industry by the Business of Fashion. The brand WOOYOUNGMI has established itself arguably as the flagship Korean men’s brand in Europe. Since 2017, she handles designs with her daughter Katie Chung and the brand has 24 stand-alone stores in Asia with one European store in Paris, and is also sold in London’s Selfridges, Paris’ Le Bon Marché and Marais in Melbourne, Australia.
(Source: Wikipedia)
