Sohyun Jung: My first New York Fashion Week, I was 21 and still didn’t speak English very well. I was doing a fitting for Marc Jacobs’s fall 2017 runway show, and couldn’t understand what anyone was saying and why I was waiting around for three hours. It was nothing like Seoul Fashion Week. My phone died. I started to panic. But then, another Korean model approached me and comforted me. She invited me to sit with her and let me borrow her phone charger. She translated the announcements and told me when it was my turn to be fitted. That woman was HoYeon Jung — she was a year older than I was, and it was her third New York Fashion Week. In Korean culture, we take care of each other, especially when we’re working overseas. We commute to fittings and eat together between shows. I met EZ six years ago at a party in Seoul, and when we went to New York for fashion week, we lived together for the whole season and got really close. I met Chloe recently in New York, but I already consider her a younger sister. What I’ve longed for over the past year has been that sense of community, of going out in Seoul with EZ and my other model friends, like Sora Choi and Yoon Young Bae. We’d meet in Gangnam, where most of us live, and from there we’d have dinner — usually street food, like tteokbokki [a spicy rice cake], dakbal [spicy chicken feet] or Korean barbecue — then bowling, karaoke and bar hopping until we’d end up at one of our apartments to play drinking games and card games, like Go Stop. I’d often end up going home when people were heading to work. I really miss those days.


Chloe Oh: I’m grateful for the older generation of Korean women, like Han Hye-jin and Jang Yoon-ju, who opened the path for younger Asian models like me. My idol growing up was Sora Choi. I first saw her on the TV show “Korea’s Next Top Model,” and thought, “I want to be like her.” I met Sohyun Jung in New York through our agency last year. We had dinner, and she told me about the modeling world. Her advice has meant a lot. We’ve stayed in touch over the pandemic, and when we met up with EZ for this shoot, we talked about hanging out together in Seoul sometime soon. So I’m really looking forward to that.
At top, from left: CHLOE OH wears a Prada sweater, $835, sweater (worn underneath), $1,350, skirt, $1,980, and shoes, price on request, prada.com. EZ wears a Miu Miu top, $895, skirt, $990, shorts (worn underneath), $790, and shoes, $920, miumiu.com. SOHYUN JUNG wears a Louis Vuitton coat and dress, price on request, and shoes, $1,060, louisvuitton.com. Models: Chloe Oh, EZ and Sohyun Jung at the Youngbloods. Hair by Eunyoung Choi at Agency Vott. Makeup by Chakyung Park at Agency Brixx.
Interviews have been edited and condensed.

Source: New York Times

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