Interviews with Moon Jung Chang

When I was young, I wanted to become a painter because I have done fine art, especially paintings, for a long time. But, I wished my ability of art to be more functional and useful, which can help people, and found out fashion design is one of the most valuable areas for human beings.

Conception, Aesthetic, and technique are my priorities when designing. The conception is the starting point of the process, which makes the design special, based on my experience and research. The aesthetic is also important because it tells me who am I as a designer, it is like an identity and style, and accelerates the value and touch. The technique is a tool, skill and science, which makes the conception and aesthetic breathe in a real life. I create 5D sketchbook, which is the journal of 5 senses, so that it contains the values I need, such as photos, sketches, colors, scents, techniques, videos, sounds, flavors, materials, etc. Therefore, it is a full book of both classic process journal and also latest technology.

I am full of curiosity and excitement when doing design, especially I love the beginning and middle of process. In the beginning, it is the idea and concept research, and I am happy to imagine that there are many possibilities of designs. In the mid process, which is the making and sampling parts, I always make the fabrications, first samples and outcomes myself, while making, I love to see how the collection being developed.

My parents are from the academic backgrounds, and let me to read books, and study a lot, especially english, literature, science and maths. When doing my design process, I include a lot of readings and writings on my process in many different genres and many experiments, especially sciences and philosophy. I love to make my theory valid by the facts, and calculate the research as numbers. Those processes make me more academic in artistic ways, so it makes my design research and outcomes more special. I can say this is not just a beautiful design, it is coming from the researches I did from academic fields.

My dream is very simple, but hard. I wish many people's love on my brands and designs.

Young designers should experience as many as they can, challenge a lot, also fail a lot! They should not fear of failing, it would cause hesitation. Good design always comes from the creative and brave challenge!

The key of success is the honesty, especially in a professional industry. Be true and honest to your designs and relationships. I saw some designers who try to hide their weakness behind, but leads to negative results. If you have a weak point, don't hide it, confront directly and overcome it! Then opportunity will follow naturally!

I work Monday till weekends. Especially on weekdays, I start my days with checking my business emails first. After that, I start my design works at the studio. Most days, I do researches, pattern makings, and fabrications, and also the digital works. However, I take a coffee break with my french bulldog, Venus! He is always at a sofa which is right next to my pattern desks.

I believe there is no season and trends nowadays, what designer or artist suggests are the unique and own trends and styles. I follow my own ways all the time, my preset plans. The positive thing is WGSN trends' forecasts always highlight my collection as future trends, and I am happy that I am ahead of the trends.

I think a really good design must satisfy people's senses and needs. It is hard to satisfy every single criteria, but must need the strongest strengths to attract people.

There are a moment I feel, this is it. I am a minimalist who loves maximalism, so I combines the contrasts of those two aesthetics. However, I find the right moment to stop it, and not do overly design. Designs are ready made, but I believe they also need the moment of feeling natural. If I feel something is not complete or missing, I take a break from it and come back later to figure them out, while working on others, and I find the way to solve the incomplete designs.

The biggest design work was my first thesis collection from my BFA. At that time, I was working on the theme of Fashion Victim, especially about PTSD, and I was too nervous and did not know how to describe it into the garments. However, I firstly confront myself, and also the society, and made this topic broader, shared with people, to make the burden lighter, and confronted it as the perspective of an artist and designer. I successfully completed so well, the outcome was amazing, and received the highest compliments and spotlights. It was the hardest project I did, but it turned out the sweetest at the end.

Alexander McQueen and Martin Margiela are my favorite designers, both of them have created the magic in different ways. McQueen creates the full of imaginations and dark fantasy of art and fashion. Margiela also breaks all the rules of fashion industry, which flipped the existing rules and systems, but his garments are perfectly deconstructed and tailored.

I have been NYC almost 8 years now, and it is much more comfortable than my hometown, Korea. I think culture effects on my design for sure because my lifestyle changed a lot when I moved to NYC to study fashion design. The city was full of freedom and expression, and no regulations and limits on art and design educations.

I only work alone because I need to focus alone and can work fast. I do have interns for shows or productions, as well as production managers. But for design process, I do work alone. However, that does not mean I am not doing interactions. My business philosophy is to have a communication with people through my design. I do interact with people and friends from industry, and do collaborations and give feedbacks to each other.

I am the designer who seek sustainable lifestyle, so I promote better conditions on design process, production places, workers, and also for environment. I abandon toxic materials and animal furs, and always try to use the recycled fabrics. Moreover, I attend the critiques and symposium for young designers to give them tips for their portfolio.

I am so happy that I won the Golden Award, which is the highest in a fashion category. As the most famous design competition, I received many spotlights, greeting letters, and contacts rom many people, and again, it becomes the connections and relations widely. Thank you to A' Design Award.

I want to reinterpret the 17 to 18th century
couture and millinery techniques to hybrid and futuristic versions, which is romantic, dark, but also eternal. In this process, I wish to cooperate the concept of sustainability to create timeless designs.

This winning design is ready to meet customers at the department and concept stores in Asia and Europe. I am happy that people can touch, wear and feel.

This collection design took honestly 4 years to complete. For 2 years, I researched and designed about the garments expressing PTSD. Another 2 years was I used fashion as tool to recover from PTSD, and this winning design represents how PTSD recovered and rebirth of the new survival mechanism, the cuteness.

I love to be inspired by the personal story and experience, something I or other people experience because I believe design should be human story based.
Everyone goes through stressful and hard time, which can be PTSD moment. I am a fashion designer, not a doctor, and I wanted to help people and PTSD patients as the fashion designer's perspective.

I produce everything by myself. When my brand grows big, I am planning to open my own couture atelier.

I am the designer who loves beauty, aesthetic, as well as the function. I promote hybrid couture, which means wearable couture in modern and future days. I use many traditional couture techniques and reinterpret them into modern and sustainable ways, which bring a new aesthetic point of view and also wearable and functional.

I researched many fields of art, design, history, and even psychology and medical.

I am targeting all gender, and age, anyone who wants to wear. Also, I am planning to launch my second label, which is a lifestyle, so that customers can wear couture while walking with their dogs.

My design is not just a garment, everything was created artistically and scientifically. I created and tested materiality and fabric choices when dealing with PTSD in the design process. I researched and selected friends who suffer from PTSD to explore the impact of fashion play therapy, so to speak. I asked them to play with fabrics and materials, it reminded sufferers of their childhood and they felt at ease and more comfortable.

"Hybrid Beauty" is the word that I created to reflect my concept and aesthetic, which is tension and dualism between aesthetic and senses. Therefore, It means using the cuteness and childhood to overcome PTSD.

I created 5D sketchbook, which contains all the senses, such as visual, smell, touch, hearing, and feeling. Also I use all the fashion tools and design tools to create it.

My design can be looked like a beautiful collection, but inside of it, there is a dark and sad experience, and many researches behind it, which will evoke people's curiosity. Also, I played with the concept of the beauty and ugliness. In the “Hybrid Beauty” collection, I challenge to break the stereotypes of beauty, and I use flowers as metaphors that beauty can become ugly, and also the ugly can become beautiful.

I did everything by myself. I love to collaborate with artists and photographer after I finalize my collection. This creative collaboration will produce new visual languages and also even new unexpected space or exhibition.

The technology I used was the reinterpreting the traditional couture and millinery techniques. Many people abandon the old things because of time consuming and functional issues. I also want the techniques to survive again. The cute features which have been traditionally used and inherited is a ribbon, ruffles, and flowers. By practicing the traditional millinery and couture techniques with using velvet and silk to mold flowers, and ribbon foldings. These reinterpret the 17 to 18th century couture techniques to hybrid and futuristic versions by combining my dual aesthetic and concept.

I have to develop the system and data analysis to calculate the interviewers and testers who are all involved in this research. I had to know which fabrics with materials are useful for PTSD patients to be more comfortable and safe, as well as the customers too.

My challenge was creating visual realization of the concept of PTSD, which is a mental health. I collected many experiences and story from myself and others, study the medical and psychological treatment, and add aesthetic and functionality to the design realization.

I want to get a proof my design is not just a fashion, but also with function and story. Also, I wish many people to know about PTSD and hope to recover, saying "we can do it!"

I am also a PTSD patient, I had a bad accident while doing fashion and always nervous when I am doing fashion. I am also on the process of recovering, and become much better after completing my design collection. In this process, I had to meet many PTSD sufferers and that also leads me to open up my mind and design development much wider and deeper both as a human being and designer.

My second brand, Venus In Black is launching soon. We seek sustainable and ethical approach to the design and production process. The brands’ goal is to elevate the environmental human and animal friendly lifestyle, to work on enhancing animal rights, and to abandon toxic and non recycled materials, animal leather and furs. Moon Chang and Venus In Black promise to be a sustainable and ethical brand which is born with the love for coexistence with human and animal, and with human and nature.

Firstly, I believes the fine art motivates art and design aesthetically, and then the functionality. I wished my ability of art to be more functional and useful, which can help people, and found out fashion design is one of the most valuable areas for human beings.

I wanted to become a painter because I have done fine art, especially paintings, for a long time. But, as I grew up, I realized I wish to design timeless artworks which can be used by people, so I decided to become a designer, instead of a painter.

I can design Fashion and apparel as well as product, from industrial design. I thought I love all the genre of designs but I realized I love fashion more, so nowadays, I only focus on fashion and garments design, which can be used as products too!

Young designers should experience as many as they can, challenge a lot, also fail a lot! They should not fear of failing, it would cause hesitation. Good design always comes from the creative and brave challenge!

Timeless designs and techniques, as well as the conceptions.

I think a really good design must satisfy people's senses and needs.

The value of good design can't be calculated, it is something transcends the time and place, and contains the value. Everyone needs a right to enjoy the value of designs to enhance the quality of life.

I want to design a fashionable space suit for NASA.

Experiences! I made and design many things, and know what are my strengths, and developed my aesthetic, style, and techniques. As a designer, we need our own strengths, it is the best ingredient of the design success.

Martin Margiela and Alexander McQueen

The greatest design is the design we can see the concept, process, and outcomes in pleasant ways. In design, everything is connected in details, there are no good design without the foundations.

I researched a lot, and made the knowledge into mine, which means I reinterpreted myself, and applied it into my design process. For example, Darwin's evolution theory, it said every life has a survival mechanism to survive, survival of the fittest. And I applied that idea into fashion and garments, what makes certain techniques survived and inherited till present days.

I would become a veterinarian or lawyer. The aptitude test I did in my high school, it suggested both lawyer or artist, which was a very opposite and rare result.

Design is life, we can't live without it.

I want to say thank you to my professors, who taught me to build strong foundations and also made me to grow more creative and stronger. Also many people and friends from industry, who support and trust me all the time!

High expectations and perfections on myself. I have to be very strict myself.

Due to my high standard, I challenged myself, didn't sleep, all days working and doing interns, and that let me to have a bad accident, and after that, I had PTSD and anxiety disorder, the fear of fashion. I had to deal and overcome that trauma to continue my fashion job.

Designers always must please visually first. Presentation also needs to be coincident with their aesthetic and concept, but always in edited and minimal ways, like a gallery space.

I am working on couture that can be worn at your walk, on street, even when walking your dogs! Couture that is functional and consumer friendly.

My goal is to design until I am 100 years old, which means I always being ahead of trend and time, never get old or retarded.

People want some new stimulus, experiences, and touch. That is the duty for designers to do, and also myself.

Nowadays, due to the pandemic, we need many help from doctors and nurses. However, fashion also plays the important roles in human society, I wish to be helpful in a perspective of fashion designer and artist. That would be designers need to design something useful, but also visually pleased and inspired people to give an art energy in their life.

Designing a new collection excites me the most, it gives new life on my life, and excited to meet new babies.

The project I did with Cotton Incorporated, the outcome was great, I was awarded in that project, also got scholarship. But the reason why I picked is, it was the turning point of my design process, I felt I truly design it, also it was the time when I got a bad accident, and I was happy that I completed and submitted professionally.

I cannot expect what would happen because the world has been changed so much recently. But the sure thing is, there would be no seasons, trends, and also the limit of places.

It depends on the type of the project, minimum 3 hours to 6 months.

I classically research on the word, sometimes, the word brings you the magic.

Be creative and make everything beautiful.

Both! Design and trends just happen naturally.

Technology is the most important role as a designer, especially nowadays, we cannot live without it.

Adobe Creative Clouds are my best friends. Months ago, I couldn't use my Adobe for 3 days, due to the errors, and my business almost shut down, I could not proceed anything. I realized the design software plays huge parts in our process.

Color, materials and ambient are the most values for design, they create the mood, trend, and atmosphere, they are everything. The Same jacket pattern with different colors and materials, it would be changed so differently. I value the time on my research to choose what color, materials, ambient to use in every season.

Dana Thomas' Gods And Kings made me excited to feel the life of geniuses in a fashion world.

Martin Margiela, I have a big curiosity of his hidden personality and beauty of creation.
Yves Saint Laurent, I want to talk about his fashion life and french bulldogs.

I am too shy to get attentions, but many people love my designs, so I am very thankful. But I wish only attentions on my "work and design", not on my "personal" life.

My favorite color is black and pink. My favorite place is Soho, NYC. My favorite food is something spicy and also sweet. My favorite thing is my old polly pockets and cupid dolls. My favorite brand is Prada and MM6.

When I just graduate my bfa, I had a chance to shoot Schon Magazine editorial with a famous photographer, whom I saw from Vogue when I was a teenager. I was so excited to meet him and was so happy that he wanted to shoot my collection. On the shooting day, we said "hello", and he asked me, "where is the designer, Moon?" and I said "I am", and he said I look too young so he thought I was the intern of mine. We laughed together, and the shooting and outcome was amazing, and awarded many prizes.

I try to focus on my design whole day, when I take a break, I always go to a museum and gallery, but can't go recently due to covid. So, for my home motivation, I play with my french bulldog, Venus, and he motivates me a lot, because he is my muse and symbol of dualism.

When I was young, I just dreamed and made a goal to go to NYC to study fashion design, and when it was realized, I just worked hard to achieve the quality I want.

I am recently working on my second label, VENUS IN BLACK, please love and wear it a lot!

Moon Chang is the brand which promotes hybrid couture, which means wearable couture in modern and future days, we also have a second brand named, VENUS IN BLACK, a life style brand, which promotes wearable couture in sustainability.

Design for me is, it can be anything with conception and functionality.

I like to design "experience", such as PTSD, something I or other people experience, it can be personal, and I love to extend it as a social, and test it out with garments. I use fashion as a visual language and tool.

I love all of my collection, especially, the aesthetically techniques I developed and cooperated them into my designs.

I fall in love with Traditional millinery, and couture techniques, with traditional velvet, silk, satin, and organza. As a contrast, I combined these fabrics with functional materials, like waterproof nylon, and heat-sealed rubber.

The most creative is something easy, simple but surprise.

I focus on aesthetic with functionality, to make people want that design.

Love and Hate. I am inspired by my PTSD experience, the mental health, and want to express the hardness and beauty of it, and overcome the trauma with fashion.

I feel more challengeable and hopeful to move on to next experiment.

Play, Research, Making and Testing are the key success of my design process.

I follow my instinct and senses to define good or bad first, and try to figure out why this become good or bad, is there story behind.

I wish my brand to be sustainable in the design and production process because this will lead to my brand to be prolonged in a healthy way. I want my brand to be sustainable and ethical in both the design and production process. This is the duty of a creator.

Hybrid will be the future! The mix of new combinations of unusual, oddity and difference will create
new aesthetic and future.

My last exhibition and show were in NYC, and I am planning to hold upcoming exhibition in Asia regions.

I can be inspired by everything, even food, like vegetables. However, my favorite inspiration is my own personal story and experience. I believe there is power in a human’s story.​ I am always inspired by personal stories and stretch this to social movement to validity.​

I focus on the dichotomy between beauty and ugliness is an invaluable asset of my own visual vocabulary as a designer. The massive size and weight of black with cute elements such as flowers, bows, and ruffles create the tensions of contrasts and emphasize the aesthetic of massive minimalism as well as the cuteness in ugly ways.

I am from South Korea, but living in NYC for 10years. I can see my design is conversion of eastern and western cultural heritage. In my collection, I reinterpreted couture techniques, which is from Europe. I followed European techniques, but in the meantime, my background as a Korea, definitely would have an impacts on this process, and this creates something aesthetically unusual and different.

I do many meetings to communicate with companies. I think verbal and visual presentation is very important to convey the idea of design and also listen and reflect what they want.

I read and research a lot first, academically study. I imagine how this can be visual and narrative into design, something you can touch, feel, and wear, so I make many testing samples in 3D to see how it looks in real. I repeat this process many times to make the real happen.

I love to play with my French bulldog, Venus, who is my muse for our brand, VENUS IN BLACK.

I want to say "play and experiment a lot in the design process".

The positive is mentally, I can stay young to keep my imagination and fantasy to design, and being proud when I see people wearing my collection, which I design. The negative is physically so tired and too much stress to get a new idea and inspiration to create something new.

Making skill is the most important, especially in fashion. Many people can imagine, design in 2D, but if you do not have a power to make in 3D, which is real, design will lose the power of function, I believe function is the key of differencing art and design.

Adobe Creative Clouds are my best friends. Sources are unlimited, even I look up from science, medical book, to cooking and gardening book.

I always write the design planners, which contains from the process to outcomes, which is production. However, it always delays or running out of times, due to many works, but still I do planners, and can estimate my times and schedules based on the experiences.

Why do you choose to become a fashion designer? Where do you get inspirations? When you are being proud to become a designer? Who is your favorite designer?

I think my internships, which I did early age of 20s. At that time, I did not know much about fashion and industry,
and I could learn very fast and see the distinct of the academic and industrial fields.

Mostly based in New York and Seoul.

I have upcoming major department stores' stocks in this Summer and Fall.

For design, I do it by myself, and for production, I have a team.

VENUS IN BLACK, my second lifestyle brand, will be launched soon. VIB is ready to wear and product-based, that customers can wear it while walking with their dogs.

Please find me at my website, moon-chang.com or my instagram, @moonchangny

PTSD and mental health is a very heavy topic for fashion. I chose PTSD as the main concept of my collections because I found a hope that fashion has a healing power. This journey started with my personal experience being a victim of the fashion industry, fashion overcame my health. I realized this is not just my experience, it is for everyone who is in the fashion industry, moreover, people living in this society. I challenged myself to solve mental health from the perspective of a fashion designer. Therefore, my brand, Moon Chang, has a big overall theme, called Hybrid Beauty, which uses “fashion as the treatment of mental health", using “vulnerability and cuteness as the protective mechanism to fight against deadly stressful conditions in modern society.

While researching the history of couture and flower making, I came up with a way to create my own petals using 100-year-old brass metal. I wanted to incorporate time into my collection with timeless techniques, using historical tools along with new techniques to express my design aesthetic and vision.Definitely, it was difficult to find historical pieces in the United States, so I collected the molds overseas. Also, I found M&S Schmalberg, a historic handmade flower company in NYC, and they helped me create large blooms for my Hybrid Beauty collection. Every joint effort is born into a new flower of the past and future.

My aesthetic focus on the dichotomy between beauty and ugliness is an invaluable narrative of my own visual and psychological vocabulary. I love to play with the tension and dualism between aesthetic and senses. Also, I always challenge myself to break the stereotypes of beauty, especially in the fashion industry. Many people who desire fashion have become slaves to consume fashion products, and also are willing to nip and tuck their bodies to meet fashion’s standard beauty ideals. I saw many victims who were hurt by fashion. Therefore, my brand “Moon Chang” does not have distinctive sizes, we only have size 0, which means “no size”. I found beauty by building exaggerated and oversized silhouettes and textures for the human body as the symbols for breaking the norms and expectations of a female body and beauty standards in our society that we slave to.

While using flower bouquet packaging as a draping and pattern-making technique, I came up with the idea of ​​human packaging. I use flowers as a symbol of humanity and a metaphor for universal beauty, empowering humanity through clothing, aesthetics, functionality, and durability.

PTSD and aesthetic judgments are closely related as they are both triggered through memory, stimulation, and perception in the brain. I collected many experiences from myself and others, studied the medical and psychological treatment including neurobiology, and added aesthetic and functionality. My collection looks beautiful externally, but inside of it, there are dark and sad experiences, and many researches behind it, which will evoke people’s empathy and curiosity. My mission as a designer is not to just make beautiful garments but I aimed to exercise materiality and fabric choices to heal the trauma.

My dual aesthetic, beauty v.s. Ugliness, and in love with wastes, and ugliness, this evolves into the shapes, materiality, and fabrications to illustrate the dreamy but dark fairytale, which reflects our life. I wish to portray that every existence in this world has both softness and toughness, and this concept led me to develop the concept of Hybrid Couture, which is the mix of beautiful couture and functional street or sportswear. And stereotypically, couture has been received as uncomfortable garments, or just for special occasions, and I wanted to challenge that couture can be functional and durable. I realized what I love, which is fashion, can hurt nature and humans ultimately, and it’s not sustainable. In the beginning, I believed the easiest way to be sustainable was choosing the right materials with durability, longevity, and of course aesthetic.

Black and Pink! I have two different personas as a person. One external side is black, dark, massive and oversized(maximalism). But the other is an internal and hidden one, who loves pink, something small and cute(minimalism). The color “black” is considered as “dead”. However, I think it is a forever color, and also the pink which represents youth and love, but this also can be a death. Breaking the original meanings of each color and embedding the new perspective. My interpretation of Pink tries to bring the hidden shy one out, as the process of overcoming the trauma. My binary perception illustrates the contrast of the beauty and the beast, the light of purity and the darkness of shadow, dead and alive, and the fantasy and the reality. And I believe all the girls used to love pink when they were kids, and suddenly forget about their princess dream when they become adults, and I design the clothes that girls dreamed of when they were kids.

Yes, winning the A'Design Award was a truly honorable moment and a great opportunity to share my wearable couture with a global audience. I always want to share the positive message that anyone can overcome trauma and that everyone is beautiful both physically and mentally. Through this experience, I was able to share wearable couture and healing fashion with the public, which motivated me to take on more challenges and explore more.

The future of my fashion design is wearable couture and empowerment, which means “life” in terms of “sustainability”. It means “sustainable life” and “eternity.” I believe my traditionally invented designs have healing power to help people who suffer from mental health, and this is the power for the future fashion. I wish to create the whole experience of creativity and sustainability, and my brand makes people beautiful but empowering in social and ethical ways.