Spring 2002

For Yeohlee it is never about the 60’s, or the 80’s, it is about how we want to look today. Or, in this case, how we will want to look in the Spring of 2002. She sees fashion as a conversation: a series of problems and resolutions in which she works to advance fashion thinking at pace with developments in contemporary art, architecture and industrial design. As the designer looks at life today and toward the future, she naturally thinks of where functional clothes have been and where they have come from. Sarongs, saris, kilts, togas and ponchos come to mind; functional clothes created from simple geometric shapes, usually rectangles, triangles and squares. In this collection she plays with how arc segments, rectangles, circles and half circles can be draped and tied in interesting yet wearable shapes. “I was thinking of... 'friends, Romans and countrymen'....” says Yeohlee, “and I searched Premiere Vision for fabrics that will lend themselves to that mood.” The collection includes linen, cotton, wool and silk, with tech nylons as the shelter pieces. The color palette is natural with accents of red, orange and green. The collection gained focus from ideas developed in a number of recent projects which took the designer beyond the runway: an exhibition opening later this fall at The Museum at FIT in New York titled “Yeohlee : Supermodern Style” which explores the process of design from textile to finished garments; a book “Yeohlee : Work” to be published by Images; and a commission to design patient gowns and uniforms for the staff at The Valley Hospital in Ridgewood, New Jersey. “Each of these projects contributed to the collection for Spring 2002,” says Yeohlee. “In essence all the solutions come from the material that I have to work with, the functional requirements of the wearer and the perfection of the human form.”