스타들, 주한 대사들 앙드레김 애도물결

Diplomats, celebrities mourn icon

 

Friends, acquaintances and even influential public figures ceaselessly stopped by to pay respects to Korea’s fashion industry pioneer Andre Kim at the Seoul National University Hospital mortuary in Yeongeon-dong on Thursday and Friday.

The top South Korean designer died at around 7: 25 p.m. on Thursday after being treated for colorectal cancer and pneumonia.  He had been fighting cancer for several months and was hospitalized at an intensive care unit last month due to deteriorating health.

The funeral parlor was quiet and solemn even though it overflowed with mourners and reporters.

Staff members of the Andre Kim Atelier, clad in black skirts and white blouses with puffed shoulders and bearing the Andre Kim signature label, were often spotted coming in and out to cater to the visitors.

Culture minister Yu In-chon arrived at the hospital around 11:40 p.m. on Thursday and offered his condolences to Kim’s surviving family members. Kim, who was unmarried, is survived by a son he adopted in 1982 and two grandchildren.

Andre Kim is seen in this 1992 photo with Princess Josephine- Charlotte of Luxembourg during his post-fashion show reception. The fashion show was from an invitation by the IOC. (Yonhap News)

Many actors, actresses, comedians and singers including Won Bin, Choi Bul-am, Yu Jae-seok, Jeon Do-yeon, Kim Hee-sun, Jo Su-mi and Ha Chun-hwa visited the funeral parlor during the two days.

The fashion king was always very close with celebrities, as the main features of his fashion shows were always the top actors, actresses or sports stars of the moment. He had even established the Best Star Award in 2004 to award meritorious stars for their contributions to the development of the country’s popular culture and arts.

Foreign ambassadors and their wives and children often modeled for Kim’s shows as well.

“My wife and I were very good friends with Andre, he was very kind when we first arrived to Korea and his friendship with my wife blossomed throughout the years,” said Rafael A. Salazar, envoy from Guatemala. Salazar and his wife had modeled for some of Kim’s shows.

“We appreciate all that Andre did for our relationship with Korea. We will miss him very much. He was a good friend to us,” said Salazar.

“He was well known to the Australian Embassy and we express our deepest regrets. He is a man who contributed greatly to Korea’s cultural and social life over the past several decades,” said an Australian Embassy spokesperson.

The rites of placing Kim’s body in a coffin began at 5 p.m. Friday following the Buddhist tradition. The designer was Buddhist.

The funeral procession will leave the hospital on Sunday at 6 a.m. It will pass by his house, where he lived for more than 30 years, and then his boutique, followed by his new atelier that was built last year. He will be buried at the Cheonan Memorial Park in Cheonan, South Chungcheong Province. Kim chose the site when he was alive because it is where his parents were laid to rest.

By Park Min-young (claire@heraldm.com)

앙드레김을 기억하다**

Remembering Andre Kim, 'the magician from fairyland'

 

Veteran fashion designer Andre Kim, who died of pneumonia Thursday, aged 74, left some unforgettable, significant traces in fashion history.

Born Kim Bong-nam in Gupabal-ri in Goyang city, which is now included in Eunpyeong-gu, Seoul, on Aug. 24, 1935, Kim started to show his extraordinary talents as a teen, when he enjoyed sketching women in graceful dresses.

“There was no such word as ‘fashion’ or ‘designer’ at the time. I opened my eyes to clothes and art through movies,” Kim said in a TV interview in May 2006.

After graduating Hanyoung High School, Kim studied fashion at Kukje Fashion Design Academy and made his debute as a fashion designer in 1962, at the age of 27. He opened his boutique “Salon Andre” in Sogong-dong, the same year.

Kim was in the limelight from the very beginning of his career, being the first and only male designer for a long time. Kim carved his own path as a designer, proving how beautiful Western dresses created by a man could look on Korean women by dressing top actresses in the 1960s such as Eom Aeng-ran.

His glamorous gowns and wedding dresses were soon acknowledged around the world -- particularly after a successful fashion show in Paris in 1966. His creations were accorded rave reviews from French fashion editors, including one at Le Figaro who called him a “Magician from Fairyland.”

Korea at the time was still a “hermit kingdom” to many countries around the world. Andre Kim was one of the first Koreans to put the country on the world map.

After that pioneering step, Kim held fashion shows at least a couple times every year in major cities around the globe, including Washington, D.C., New York, Honolulu, Singapore, Jakarta and Los Angeles.

Kim became more adventurous as the years passed and chose exotic locations for his fashion shows that were known for their elements of fantasy. He was the first fashion designer ever to stage a gala fashion parade in front of the Pyramids and the Sphinx in Egypt, in 1996. The show was given the honor of the rare presence of Madam Susan Mubarak, the First Lady of the country.

He also held a show in front of another world-famous landmark, Ankor Wat in Cambodia, ten years later. The only cultural event held in Ankor Wat until then had been a performance by Jose Carreras in 2002.

Wherever the venue was, Kim mesmerized the audience with his stunning shows. They were known for featuring the top celebrities of the moment, including actresses Lee Young-ae, Kim Hee-seon, Han Chae-young, Kim Tae-hee, actors Jang Dong-gun, Song Seung-heon, Lee Byung-heon and even sports stars Lee Seung-yub and Lee Dong-guk. Showbiz insiders used to say that one finally gets approved as a star only after being featured as the main model at Andre Kim’s shows.

“Professional models are chic but they have limits in expressing feelings. Actors and actresses, on the other hand, can touch the audience by offering a dramatic show,” Kim said.

Up until his last show held in Beijing in March, Kim scrupulously took care of every single detail.

He died on Thursday from complications of pneumonia and colorectal cancer, at the age of 74. (Park Hae-mook/The Korea Herald)

“A fashion show is a total art. It should move the audience’s hearts as if they were watching the highlight scenes of an opera or a musical. That is why I personally write the scenarios, mix the background music and direct all of my shows. At the final rehearsal, I teach the models how they should act and make their facial expressions,” Kim said in May 2005.

For his splendid works and efforts to promote fashion, Kim was honored by numerous organizations during his lifetime.

Finalists of the "2010 Super Model Competition" come to pay respect to the late fashion icon Andre Kim at the Seoul National University Hospital on Friday. (Park Hae-mook/The Korea Herald)

Kim was selected as the main designer for the Miss Universe Competition in 1980, designed the Korean national team’s uniforms for the 1988 Seoul Olympics and was invited by the International Olympic Committee to stage shows for the Olympics in Barcelona and Atlanta.

He was awarded the Order of Cultural Merits by the government in 1977, received the Culture medal from the President of Italy in 1982, and the Art and Literature medal from the French government in 2000. The mayor of San Francisco even declared Nov. 16 and Oct. 18 as “Andre Kim Day,” in 1999 and 2003, respectively.

His name became more of a brand in his later days. Kim had cultivated the Andre Kim brand, associated with luxury and romanticism, by lending his name to a wide range of goods including golf wear, eye wear, jewelry, underwear, children’s clothing, bedding, home lighting, porcelain dishware, household appliances, wallpaper, and even credit cards.

“The name is being used in various realms but I have a principle of collaborating with only the companies that fit into the image of my designs. Some private lenders and tobacco companies recently made some offers but I declined them,” he said in an interview with a local newspaper in May, 2009.

The designer Andre Kim was very thorough at work, reading 19 newspapers and watching news from five different channels every morning. But Andre Kim as a private person was rather artless and pure.

The lobby scandal in 1999 -- in which Lee Hyung-ja, wife of Sindonga Group president Choi Sun-young was alleged to have lobbied wives of high-profile figures with expensive garments -- unexpectedly reversed the public’s prejudices about the nation’s most famous designer that he must have made a fortune selling overpriced clothes to the wealthy.

At the hearings, which Kim had to go through because garments he designed were involved in the scandal, it was revealed that Kim only used fabrics made in Korea, was an honest tax payer and that he still worked in a rented boutique.

“I learned a big lesson from the scandal, that there is always a good end if the person is honest. No matter how unfairly you are treated, or how much you suffer from misunderstanding, it will be turned into a blessing and truth will be revealed in the end if you hang in there, being honest,” Kim said, ten years after the scandal blew over.

Kim became more of a celebrity after the scandal, in a good way. The public felt closer to Kim -- partly because his rather rustic real name was revealed during the hearing -- and everything about him was the talk of town, from his makeup, hairstyle to the way he decks out in all-white, something he maintained since 1974. His unique way of speaking, especially, inspired many comedians.

“I found it a bit unpleasant at first, because I thought they were ridiculing me. But seeing people racing toward me to ask for my autograph whenever I went out, I feel like I am becoming a star. Now I consider it as a sort of popularity. Although I cannot find one who perfectly mimics me, yet,” he would say with a laugh.

He never married but adopted an 18-month-old boy in 1982. Kim Jung-do, his adopted son, was the designer’s treasure. Kim received attention for how hard he cried the day his son married in February 2004.

The fashion maestro still had more dreams to pursue and believed he would live longer, just as his fans had also hoped for.

“Georgio Armani, who is one year older than me, still actively works without having named a successor. I think I can focus on creating my works for at least the next 10 years. And then I will think of naming a successor,” he said in an interview last year.

“Later on, I would like to make a documentary movie about ‘Andre Kim.’ It would be great to leave a record of my fashion world.”

By Park Min-young (claire@heraldm.com)