BEAUTY: Clothing--Wooyoungmi

Madame Woo's eponymous brand has been officially showing at Paris Fashion Week since 2003 and was the first Korean brand to do so. No small feat. Yet she has always eschewed designs that touch on her culture. She usually sends out collections that feature impeccable suit tailoring, sweeping silhouettes, and Romantic and elegant touches.

But for this Fall Winter '26-'27 collection at Paris Fashion Week, she took inspiration from the golden age of railway travel in the winter. She thought specifically of the Gyeongin Railway Line which opened in 1899, connecting Seoul and Incheon. And these magnificent garments reflect the time period... and even a bit before. The regimental sense of some pieces made me flash on many decades earlier; several models look like they stepped off the set of a film adaptation of "Anna Karenina" (something about it all feels Russian, with long fur coats and exaggerated Cossack hats of fur and knit). There was a definite Dandy spirit at work as well, referencing the second Dandy era of Oscar Wilde, which she delivered in a collection from 2017, seen here.

Regular readers know that I love a sense of historical dress in a designer's collection, and this is truly lovely. I will take any of these pieces, particularly the suits with that very high stance, but I especially love the red 3/4 length coat in Look #12.

https://www.wooyoungmi.com/