André Kim

Birth name
Hangul	김봉남
Hanja	金鳳男
Revised Romanization	Gim Bong-nam
McCune–Reischauer	Kim Pongnam
Stage name
Hangul	앙드레 김
Hanja	앙드레 金
Revised Romanization	Angdeure Gim
McCune–Reischauer	Angdŭre Kim

André Kim (August 24, 1935 – August 12, 2010) was a South Korean fashion designer based in Seoul, South Korea. He is known mainly for his evening and wedding gown collections.

Career

Kim, whose real name is Kim Bong Nam, is one of fashion designers in South Korea. He has achievements in Korean fashion, and International fashion. New York Times and Herald Tribune in London described him as 'A pioneer in Korean fashion' and 'Alive fashion hero'.

Kim became the Korea’s first male fashion designer as he opened his fashion shop in 1962 and since that time he attracted public attention by designing a wedding dress of Um Aeng Ran, who was a top star at that time, and designing many clothes like uniforms of the Korean athletes for the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul. Furthermore, not only did he hold a fashion show in Paris as the first South Korean in 1966 but also he held a lot of fashion shows in many places such as New York^{[disambiguation needed]}, Washington DC, Beijing and Sydney. Also, he was in the spotlight of the world because he became the world's first fashion designer to hold a fashion show in front of pyramids and Angkor Wat temple.

Since 2002 Kim has expanded his business into not only design fields such as children's wear and golf coat but also various fields like cosmetics and jewelry. He was active in his work even before he died on August 12, 2010, because of the pneumonia and colorectal cancer at age 74.

Fashion Styles

There are many characteristics that André Kim has in his fashion shows and styles. One of them is wedding finale, which is representative symbol as a bride and groom wearing wedding gowns confront each other. Kim sticks to a design that emphasizes woman's elegance and tries to apply Korean traditional pattern. Moreover, he always emphasizes white color. To be specific, the clothes that he designed are white as well as the things that he uses, such as furniture and cars, are also white. Moreover, he wears only white clothes regardless of the situation, even when he sleeps and takes a rest.

References

Other websites

Official website