A cat and a rabbit made Yang Yoona rethink her life. The South Korean designer adopted Mochi Anko, his cat, and his way of seeing the world changed. «Because of him I began to have an interest in the protection of animals and animal suffering. Before I had it, the most important thing for me was fashion, but later it was my cat,” he explains at the Korean Cultural Center in Madrid, where he has traveled to present Consciousness, an exhibition in which he shows the garments of his brand, Vegan Tiger, and explains the philosophy behind it. The sample can be visited until July 28 at the institution and all the clothes and accessories that are seen in it are vegan, although at first glance they appear to be made of leather, wool or hair. Because Yang Yoona created her brand in 2015 with a clear idea: to produce vegan garments, to raise awareness through fashion. She started testing materials and designs and has reached the idols of K-pop. In the speech behind his brand, the rabbit that was the protagonist of the short film animation 2021 Save Ralph, by George Lopez, who shows everything he suffers for humans to be happy. «He thinks that this suffering will contribute to improving the fashion industry and the lives of humans, when I saw the short I felt very bad and in the collection that I show in this exhibition I have incorporated rabbit prints and I have used stitches, I wanted to sew up the wound”, reflects the designer.
The Korean fashion industry does not stop growing; according to data from the Korean Cultural Center, “nationally, the Korean fashion market experienced a growth of 5.2% last year compared to the previous year” and in 2021 “the country’s textile and fashion sector grew from uninterrupted manner, reaching around 29,460 million euros”. In addition, the country has become a center of attention for the big luxury brands in the last year: in April Louis Vuitton presented its pre-fall 2023 women’s collection from the Jamsugyo bridge in Seoul and in May Gucci held the fashion show of its Cruise 2024 collection at the Gyeongbokgung Palace in the South Korean capital. That international impulse, says Yang Yoona, is reflected in the local industry and its growth, a strength driven by the so-called Korean Wave, the growth movement of the global influence of South Korean culture that began in the late 1990s. “The rise of Korean culture has a lot to do with Korean fashion, because K-pop is an international phenomenon,” the designer explains, “and many K-pop singers before being a global phenomenon and ambassadors for Brands like Gucci or Chanel have been the image of national brands, I think it’s all connected, Korean fashion, K-dramas, K-pop».
precisely, the idols (singers of K-pop bands) are the clients who have given Vegan Tiger the most visibility: Rosé, from the supergroup Blackpink (which has triumphed at festivals such as Coachella and is the third female band in history to star in a front page of Rolling Stone) she wore one of her fur jackets in the Love Sick Girl music video and Sunmi wore one of her dresses. “She liked it so much that she later wanted to buy it for her,” notes Yang Yoona. In the case of Rosé, Vegan Tiger reached the superstar through her team: «I was contacted by her stylist, who continues to request clothes from me. It is important that my collections and the ideas behind them reach the general public. There is a growing trend among celebrities to wear vegan clothes, especially K-pop singers, who are looking for these clothes because they are aware that their stylistic decisions influence many people around the world. She considers that the last five years have been key to creating this awareness. “Five years ago vegan fashion was only something reserved for animal rights or environmental protection activists, but now there is a general interest, it is a trend”, she emphasizes. Shoppers keep these issues in mind: “Consumers are increasingly interested in sustainability and veganism in fashion, and designers are changing to respond to this demand. Concern has arisen due to several problems that luxury and fast clothing brands have generated, but currently many fast and luxury clothing brands launch vegan, sustainable collections, explain where the materials come from, the employment status of their employees… And that has happened thanks to the demand and high awareness of consumers. And that is the way to go, that of the most sustainable and responsible clothing ».
She decided to go vegan in 2014. She admits that at first, when applying this way of living to clothing, she encountered many problems, especially when looking for attractively designed outerwear that did not have wool or accessories such as bags or shoes without leather trace. “Since she was going to found a brand that would reject all use of animal materials it would have been incongruous not to be vegan. But when she saw a nice coat she always wore something made of wool or angora, and the 100% vegan designs weren’t so pretty. I started developing my clothes and, being within the industry, I ask other brands to make vegan accessory collections for my brand,” she explains. Creating his firm has involved research, experimenting with materials, looking to traditions to create the future: «With a Korean company I created a patent and we began to produce hanji leather, created from mulberry wood, which is a very abundant in my country. Many threads are extracted from this wood and this material has been used for centuries because it is very resistant, armor was made with it or it was used as insulation for temples… Our hanji leather has 90% thread obtained from this wood and 10% nylon. And for color we don’t use chemical dyes, only natural ones.”
Another of the materials with which he works is polyester jurasil (which combines synthetic fibers and natural substances extracted from plants and replaces the oil in the process with bean oil) or leather created from waste wine, cactus and recycled fabrics. «From 2015 to 2018 there were almost no vegan brands in Korea, and not much attention was paid to this, but in 2019 many global luxury brands decided to no longer use real hair and a change emerged, people began to become aware of the suffering of the animals. And during and after covid people see sustainability as more important, and vegan fashion brands have gotten more attention,” says Yang Yoona. She herself did not know at first what she could hide in a woolen sweater. «I started working in an animal protection NGO and I had to do a lot of research on how animal hair was obtained for clothing, and I saw that on many occasions it was extracted in a very violent way for the animal, for example, to shear the animals. the sheep not only removed their hair but part of the skin, that woke me up, “he recalls. Before taking the step of launching Vegan Tiger, she had worked for five years in different companies in the sector, always in Korea, from a men’s fashion brand related to the Tomboy firm to a women’s design company. Everything, to complete her training, which she began studying industrial and porcelain design first and then specializing in the School of International Fashion Design. She now she is part of a change that she, she assures, is in the way of looking: «Before, leather was seen as a luxury and vegan leather was used because it was more affordable. Now people who buy vegan fashion is not because they have no purchasing power, but because they are aware.
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