Designing Dialogue
Tue 11 Oct
As POST ARCHIVE FACTION (PAF) continually evolve their post-tomorrow uniform, editor Steve Salter chairs a conversation between creative brand consultant, art director and stylist Graeme Gaughan, LN-CC’s Menswear Buyer Eshaan Dhingra and Vogue Business’ Retail and Marketing Editor Kati Chitrakorn to discuss how the Seoul-based collective is cultivating the brand of now.
Steve: While PAF launched in 2018, when did we all first encounter the brand? I remember being instantly blown away by their AW19 collection, 2.0, in Hypebeast back in April 2019.
Eshaan: For me, I think it was Instagram and the brand imagery caught my attention. It's difficult to remember when we first picked them up at LN-CC because they took a pause, but I think it was AW21. By that point they had gained a little bit of traction with the LVMH Prize nomination, but it was their approach in tackling outerwear specifically that stood out to me at the very beginning. Then being able to see the collection during market helped understand their evolution and how they structure their collections.
Graeme: I remember Kendrick Lamar wearing one of their early pieces. which caused a bit of a kerfuffle in the Hypebeast-scene. But like you say, it was their visual language that struck me. If you go down a Pinterest wormhole with PAF, it’s packed with solid brand imagery. I love seeing a distinct brand language. For me, too many brands are a bit wishy washy from season to season and lack consistency.
Steve: Definitely. PAF is almost defiantly consistent.
Graeme: I think it’s how PAF approaches things, as a collective, a larger team that brings its different elements together.
Steve: In an old interview with MACHINE-A, Dongjoon Lim introduces the PAF team as 11 and it’s probably more now. All brands have studio teams, but PAF feels like a collective.
Eshaan: This approach mirrors how they categorise their collections between Left, Centre and Right. I think the PAF team is also divided into three groups as well. During the pandemic, I was on a video call with PAF and met most of the team. Instead of dealing with a sales agent, this felt so much more personal. When you have a call with them, there's so much going on in the background. It was like watching a scientific lab at work.
Steve: Eshann, as you mentioned it, can you talk us through the Left, Centre and Right in more detail? Are these distinct categories or is it more organic?
Eshann: They blend the categories and there’s movement between them. PAF themselves describe it like the political spectrum, The Left is more experimental, more free and open. The Right is more like uniform and the Centre is a blend of the two.
Graeme: There’s a lot of talk about balance within the brand itself. And there’s an on-going dialogue between these three categories. As people understand the pieces, they become less experimental and move rightwards. But like Eshaan said, the Left is their play area, the Centre is the bridging area where they combine elements from either side, and the Right is moving towards uniform.
Ehaan: In 1.0, there was a lot of tailoring on the right side and in 5.0 the left was extremely experimental, with garments with spikes.
Steve: What do we think PAF is a reaction to or continuation of? Where do you place it and what and how large a role does Seoul play?
Graeme: I’m keen to hear Kati's point of view on this actually. I've had a fascination with South Korean textile manufacturing for quite a while. For me, that's provided the path for PAF to create the products they do, with the fabrics they do. I know a lot of Japanese brands import South Korean fabrics as well, which surprised me. People have this fascination with Japanese textiles, but a lot of the nylons and synthetics come from South Korea. PAF have these amazing textiles at their disposal.
Kati: I was intrigued when you invited me to join this conversation because besides the LVMH Prize nomination, I’m not too familiar with PAF because I’m not part of that community. I’m intrigued by their relaxed but sculptural approach to clothing. On a wider point that has been documented in everything from popular K-dramas to Seoul Fashion Week, the South Korean aesthetic used to be predominantly preppy and tailored, but we’ve seen this shift into something a bit more relaxed. I think it's because of a lot of cultural changes are happening in South Korea. For example, a lot of people talk about K-pop, but hip hop has entered the mainstream there.
Graeme: From music to film, there’s some sort of cultural zeitgeist around South Korea too. There's definitely a boomerang effect from a lot of young South Korean creatives going overseas, before returning. This mixing of cultures and ideas being reinterpreted in their own sort of way, with an added dimension.
Eshaan: PAF don’t concentrate on being the coolest brand, they’re focussed on what they’re doing and there way of working. Brands can sometimes lose themselves in trying to be this hype brand that everyone wants to wear. It’s happened naturally for PAF because they create on their own terms. They’ve obviously experienced great success, especially in their hometown of Seoul and they’ve recently opened their own incredible store, but there’s a definite sense that they have tunnel vision on what they want and who they want to be.
Kati: It’s thoughtful and there’s a soft power to their approach. I would say that South Korea historically hasn't been like Japan, it hasn't been craft focussed and if anything it has been more trend based, but that’s shifting and PAF are a part of it.
Graeme: Right! There’s an ‘if you know, you know’ element. You might spot someone in one of their Down Centre jackets with the asymmetric line across, but you only know it’s PAF if you know the brand.
Eshaan: From a buying perspective, we’ve bought more into the left and centre pieces, with a couple from the right. Without needing to push the brand, we've seen a strong sell-through across all areas and I think their customer mixes and matches different elements of the collection. We’ve even had to restock too!
Steve: Alongside LN-CC, they’ve built a strong global stockist list and, as you’ve mentioned, recently opened their own store in Seoul.
Eshaan: Sometimes industry insiders might love a brand, but it doesn’t necessarily translate into wider sales success. But from the moment we bought PAF, it has. Obviously it helps that our customer understands the garments but PAF’s three-tiered approach drives it too.
Graeme: It’s indicative of how we dress from day to day as well. Sometimes we want to make more of a fuss of how we look for something specific, while other times we turn to more of a uniform. As individuals, we have this balance within us as well.
Eshaan: It's quite a simple framework that resonates. We live our lives that way, right? Whether it's the way that we dress or the way we think.
Kati: That’s true, we all have different versions of ourselves and we signal something by what we wear.
Graeme: It’s also interesting that we're in this post-truth period of politics as well, where everything is either left or right now. Everything that's forming our day-to-day lives is polarised and what we’re lacking is the centre ground. It’s interesting that PAF has developed in the aftermath of post-Trump, post-Brexit and all that crap. It’s a brand for the now.
Photographer Laurent Segretier
Art Director and Stylist Graeme Gaughan
Model Yaya