My name is Suhyung Lee and I major in fashion design. I usually get inspirations from things I see everyday in my daily life. I like to observe various textures on the surface, which I later use them as a textile print or make a knitting pattern. Therefore, I keep recording and making memos of the many things I pass by every day. I always had a small notebook in my bag and made notes in order not to lose the inspirations or ideas that visited me at any moments. Sometimes I wrote my emotions or thoughts in the fashion of a journal entry, and recorded important events or a newly discovered good designer and so on. Looking at the notebook, it records things as if they were amazing discoveries at those moments and which I now take for granted or wonder why I bothered to record, and also amazingly fresh ideas. The rusted manhole lid I passed by in the morning, an ancient sign of a shop I photographed when on a trip to the countryside, a shop that sells good fabric – making notes and photographs of such small things was, consequently, a process of making mine every moment that passed by. The habit of making note of very small things in case they are forgotten is now an obsession, but I think my mind grows and treasures build within me in proportion to the accumulating notes.
Since I spent most of my life in Korea, I think I’m highly influenced by Asian culture. When I start a project, I like to make a reference from my culture as it has a lot of inspirational things. I want to convey this beautiful foreign culture to the western society.