Subscribe
E-Paper
 |
| Hanbok designer Lee Eun-yim, better known by her brand name Lee Rheeza, died of natural causes on Saturday. She was 85. / Yonhap |
By Kang Hyun-kyung
Hanbok designer Lee Eun-yim, better known by her brand name Lee Rheeza, died of natural causes on Saturday. She was 85.
Due to the novel coronavirus pandemic, her family said Lee's funeral will be held with only family members in attendance.
Lee, founder of the Lee Rheez Hanbok Institute in Seoul, was a first generation hanbok designer who was lauded for her elegant A-line skirt. The traditional Korean attire for women consisted of an upper garment, called jeogori, and a skirt, called chima. The original design of the lower garment took the form of a jar-type skirt which made the wearer look bulkier.
Lee modified it into a chic A-line skirt to make the wearer look thinner and elegant.
In a media interview, she said her hanbok design was inspired by American actress Vivian Leigh's dress in "Gone with the Wind" movie.
It was also the brainchild of her endeavors over the years to make herself look good in the traditional attire. Tall and thin, she said she didn't look good whenever she wore hanbok and thus came up with a design that would make her look so in the traditional costume.
Several former first ladies have worn Lee's hanbok when they accompanied their husbands on overseas trips for summit diplomacy. She made a hanbok for Lee Soon-ja, the wife of former President Chun Doo-hwan; Kim Ok-sook, the wife of former President Roh Tae-woo; and Kwon Yang-sook, the late President Roh Moo-hyun's wife.
Studying English literature at Chungnam National University, Lee was a fashionista and made her own hanbok even before she opened her shop.
Lee lifted the profile of hanbok designers from simply clothing manufacturers to designers. When she started her hanbok business at a sublet of her cousin's outlet store in Dapshimni, Seoul in 1968, the term "hanbok designer" didn't exist. Those who made hanbok were mostly married women and they were treated as garment workers rather than designers. Guests would call these women "ajumma," which means married women and, at that time, also implied that the women had no particular professional expertise.
Lee said she instructed her cousin to call her "Mrs. Designer" whenever her guests came over to her shop and asked about her whereabouts.
"It was a skillful tactic that I intentionally encouraged my cousin to call me such, because back then people were not aware of design and thus had no respect for that kind of expertise," she said in an interview.
She was design-savvy. She tried to catch the unique characteristics of her guests and tailor-made hanboks for them.
Confident about her skill, Lee charged four times more for her hanbok designs than any average bespoke attire cost at that time. Some of her guests complained about the costly design and left for other designers. But they returned to her shop upon realizing that there were no others like her who could create hanbok as elegantly as she did.
After just three months, her thriving business enabled her to open her own hanbok shop in more spacious premises near the original location.
She made hanbok for celebrities and the wives of Korean diplomats. Korean beauty queens also wore her hanbok at international beauty pageants.
Since her first fashion show in 1974 at the now Westin Chosun Hotel in Seoul, Lee hosted hanbok fashion shows in many countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan and China. She was also invited to Paris to showcase her hanbok.
Lee is survived by her husband Hwang Yoon-ju, a daughter and two sons.
