Concept Korea returned to Paris Fashion Week with a dual presentation at Palais de Tokyo, showcasing the Spring Summer 2026 collections of Bonbom and Re Rhee. Concept Korea, founded in 2010, grew into South Korea’s leading fashion platform. After 14 years in New York, it moved to Paris in 2024, supported by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and KOCCA, to give designers runway visibility and business opportunities.
Designer Bonbom staged his first Paris runway with <Sur la M, le C, les G>. The collection unfolded from two central themes. The first explored the designer’s fascination with figures who embody contrasting sides. He drew inspiration from those who appear conservative in wardrobe but reveal a rebellious streak, women in pleated skirts, pearl necklaces, and tweed jackets who surprise with an irreverent attitude. Equally, he turned his attention to those who embody a raw punk aesthetic, tattoos, piercings, provocative dresses, yet reveal deeply traditional philosophies and values.
The second theme delved into Bonbom’s ongoing study of motorbike culture, horse-riding, and fetish references. He explored the shared language of leather and metal equipment, drawing connections between harnesses, biker suits, and fetish wear. For the designer, these garments carry significance not only in material but in the way they sculpt the body. Padded shoulders, fitted waists, and emphasized thighs created a muscular form that reflected his anatomical fascination, influenced by his father’s profession as an anatomist.
For Bonbom, biker wear has always carried a sense of power. Wearing it creates confidence and maturity, sharpening his perception of masculinity. By cutting into the material with precision, he found new ways to draw out shapes reminiscent of muscle definition. Corsetry, long central to his design vocabulary, reappeared here through its kinship with biker detailing, both emphasizing control, protection, and sculptural function.
In contrast, Re Rhee’s Spring Summer 2026 presentation carried the title Practical Poet. Structured as a lyrical reflection, the collection described clothing as a medium for emotion when words fall silent. The designer positioned garments as vessels for memory and meaning, where a button or a pocket could carry as much weight as a line of verse.
The text framing the collection described the act of writing through cloth: a poem stitched into a rational structure, an emotion preserved in fabric. Each piece suggested that garments hold hidden narratives, with their silence speaking louder than words. Re Rhee’s work proposed that clothing serves as a poem inscribed in daily life, allowing its wearer to carry fragments of dreams and emotions into reality.
Practical Poet invited the audience to consider garments as personal scripts, where details and construction embody memory. Each step in clothing designed by Re Rhee became part of an ongoing narrative, a quiet insistence that meaning and feeling survive even amid life’s noise.
