Andre Kim, "Improvement" Shows, and Low-end Products by Famous Designers

Today when I was reading an article on Korean designer Andre Kim’s expanding fashion and home goods empire I was reminded of an article we read a while ago in High-Pop by Jim Collins. “Style and the Perfection of Things” by Celia Lury made me think a lot about the prevalent theme of “improvement” in the United States today, as well as the impact designers have in our society. It seems that US society today is obsessed with making everything perfect: their homes, clothing, cooking, bodies. Just turn on the TV and you will see a myriad of shows or commercials based on this “improvement” theme. There are home improvement shows (“Design on a Dime”, “Flip That House”, “Trading Spaces”, “Home Made Simple”), fashion makeover shows for your wardrobe, hair and makeup (“What Not To Wear”, “10 Years Younger”, “Fashion Guide”), shows to teach you how to cook like a gourmet cook (“Take-Home Chef”), and those examples are all from just one channel. Commercials tell you that you can have a better cell phone, a better cable plan, better clothes, even better dating options just by calling this number or going to this store or website.

Included in this whole phenomenon are high-end designers doing clothing and house wear lines for stores such as Macy’s and Target, and famous chefs that have shows teaching us how to cook simple yet delicious meals. It’s the idea of No-brow: “the space between the familiar categories of high and low culture” (Seabrook, 1999: 104). These are famous designers making low-cost items so that the everyday person too can have beautifully decorated homes and high-fashion personal style. Can’t afford to hire your own chef? Well, you can learn to cook just like them by watching their TV show. It’s the idea that everyone, high-income or –low, deserves to look that good or live that well.

It seems that Andre Kim is intent on following this path in Korea. He is already a revered fashion designer who has also produced wallpaper, jewelry, underwear, cosmetics, golf wear, eyeglasses, even interior design for apartments built by Samsung Corporation. Starting in 2006, when the article dates, he moved on to washing machines and refrigerators. I could not find any articles about Kim starting his own low-end clothing line for the everyday Korean, but I’d assume that if he hasn’t already, that would be his next step. He did once say, after all, that his clothes were for everyone (after Michael Jackson asked him to be his personal designer). And Kim does come from a lower class background himself: his parents were farmers in a rural town.

People who have been to Korea or are Korean probably know more about Andre Kim and Korean fashion than I do. Are there low-end clothing and home accessories lines by famous designers in Korea? And how do people feel about these “improvement” genre shows? Why are they so prevalent in today's society?

Acculturation in YMCA Baseball

I should start out by confessing that the very first thing that struck me about YMCA Baseball was that it kind of reminded me of the premise A League of their Own. Admittedly, I have not seen the latter film, but the idea of people trying to start a baseball league during what seems to be roughly the World War II era and the struggles and pitfalls they have to go through, seems similar. It is worth mentioning that the cultural translation the Koreans experience is twofold as given to them by the Japanese who have, in turn, taken it from the Western Christian missionaries they encountered. Perhaps more to the point, the similarities between these two films illustrate the process of acculturation and how what seems normal in one context seems completely foreign in another. This can be seen at the beginning when the Korean men are holding the baseball and studying, examining it for its possible uses, as well, as when one of the men mistakes the baseball bat for a paddle. I think this concept is cleverly articulated after the death of that man, when the priest reads out what is supposed to be a eulogy to the chanting monks, but is actually, I think, the stolen love letter of one of the team players to the female coaching assistant, yet the monks mourn to it accordingly. I think the point is that things can be used in an entirely different context from the one they were meant for convincingly if one does not know their original intent; that purposes vary from culture to culture.

I find the way cultural translation is articulated in the film kind of ironic. In the United States, baseball (especially in this era) was played by men. Indeed, the Korean team members scoff at the idea of a woman being involved too, however, because the Korean woman studied in America, she is the main facilitator of the team effort due to her dual linguistic abilities. She also asserts ‘that doesn’t mean I don’t know plenty about baseball.’ Ultimately, I enjoyed this film and feel that it kind of showed on a microcosmic and very human level the macrocosmic and societal pitfalls that occur in the path of acculturation.