Kim So Hee (senior, Fashion Design) took home first prize at the “11th Doota Venture Designer Contest,” one of the nation’s most renowned fashion contests.
Kim received prize money of five million won and authority to use Doota’s two shops for a year without charge, which is worth about 23,000,000 won.
The Doota shop located in Eulji-ro, Seoul, Korea’s main street for fashion, attracts about 20,000,000 shoppers and 700,000 foreigners a year with its low prices and high quality goods.
This year’s contest theme was RETRO and 320 people, including foreigners, participated, but only 49 of the 320 participants made it to the final stage. Finalists are able to stage a fashion show with models wearing their work. It was here that judges set a high value on Kim So Hee's work. She expressed RETRO’s theme through the use of shopping bags. Kim said of her work, “I define RETRO as everything of the past, so I thought shopping bags suited RETRO, because the shopping bag is an old bowl filled with every fashion.”