Costume designer Lee Jin-hee is showcasing traditional hanbok to global audiences through her work on dramas, films and a musical. She recently served as chief designer for the musical Arang, which is eyeing a New York debut.
Lee Jin-hee, a professor at the Korea National University of Arts, designed costumes for the dramas Love in the Moonlight in 2016 and My Dearest in 2023, as well as the films The Treacherous in 2015 and The Great Battle in 2018. She received the Costume Design Award at the Grand Bell Awards in 2020.
In 2024 she held a solo exhibition at the Korean Cultural Center in New York. Last year she presented 15 hanbok pieces that integrated AI at a fashion show for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Gyeongju. During a recent interview at her Seoul studio she said viewers responded to the obangsaek colors by noting their vitality and life force.
Lee described the strength found in hanbok simplicity, saying it requires power to strip away the unnecessary. She views AI as a tool that aids the globalization of hanbok rather than a threat. She is now expanding traditions into media art performances, painting and sculpture.
