Yoon Ahn on his deeply personal and gender-defying style – SURFACE

In mid-August, the Tokyos club scene freed Yoon Ahn. Shed recently moved to Japan with her boyfriend, Young-Kee Yu (better known by her stage name, Verbal), a rap-loving marketer she met at the church near the Boston University, their alma mater. The clubs she discovered in Tokyo fascinated her. Bringing everyone together, from hip-hop heads to rockabilly kids, they were places for stylistic experimentation without judgment. Ahn decorated his clothes with studs and made jewelry from found objects. Her hair color changed every month. It was when I started to like to wear clothes, because there were no more rules, she says. Fashion is fashion in the end. It's pretty much self expression.

No one is talking about Ahn's exceptional style, because it is so obvious. The self-taught designer, who heads the ready-to-wear brand LVMH Prizenominated Ambush with her now husband Yu and is the jewelry director of Dior Men, samples looks as skillfully as Yu samples words. Combine black and white patchwork leather pants from the Ambushs spring 2020 collection with a vintage Herms bag, a men's item and something from the Japanese brand with western theme Kapital. She wears her own jewelry, which was the heart of Ambush when it launched in 2008 and now includes shiny pieces that immortalize the objects of a party purse, like a beer can more light or crushed. There is little time to style her bleached and toned hair, so it is usually tied back or straightened back, revealing her striking features. Ahns selfies are magnetic; even the t-shirts seem different to him.

Shopping, which Ahn does online 99% of the time, is less a leisure activity than a perpetual treasure hunt. Nobody tells him where to look. She explores digital storefronts until her internal metal detector turns off, and she knows in an instant if something is right for her.

Because his style is based on intuition and draws on so many sources, Ahn becomes exasperated when asked to describe it. I don't have a specific look, she says. It's just me. Her style doesn't really translate to anyone, though that hasn't stopped Kanye West fans, Kim Jones and Virgil Abloh from seeking her fashion knowledge. Famous families, the Hadids, the Kardashians and the Jennersall want to wear Ahns clothes. At the start of the year, Farfetchs New Guards Group, the Italian parent company of Off-White and Heron Preston, acquired a majority stake in Ambush. Paola Antonelli, chief curator of architecture and design at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, asked Ahn to reinvent the Cartier Love bracelet for his 2017 exhibition Items: Is Fashion Modern? In February, after collaborations in 2019 with Gentle Monster, Rimowa and Converse, Ahn published a Minnie Mousethemed line for Uniqlo and unveiled a collection of fluorescent Nike capsules, in July, for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.

Even growing up, Ahn never became attached to a genre. She was born in South Korea, but her father's work in the U.S. military took the family to Hawaii, California, and finally to Seattle, where Ahn spent most of his youth. The bourgeois neighborhood of his family bordered social housing. Half of his classmates lived in trailer parks and did their shopping at Goodwill, showing up at school in flannel and ripped jeans with Gore-Tex jackets to block the rain. Ahn noticed, incorporating pieces of grunge into his wardrobe (and, later, in Ambush).

She worked part-time at the public library, where she discovered the world of fashion by studying international titles such as the Face and i-D. That's when the scene in downtown New York was big, says Ahn. I was like, ok, that's how these girls dress. I didn't have a chance to buy anything, but I was fascinated. These magazines led her to study graphic design at university, which then took her to Tokyo, where she lives today.

Japan is a suitable place for Ahn to continue experimenting. Fashion is an imported culture in this country, she says. People become obsessed with something they see abroad and make their own impression on it. It is not about being politically correct. While testing the clothes she saw in the wild, Ahn discovered herself. I feel like there is a part of me that belongs to each of these looks.

(Images courtesy of Yoon Ahn)

This story appears in the March issue of Area. To discover the full issue, subscribe here.