Handmade differences
A start-up Seoul-based footwear brand is attracting attention in Europe as a result of its ability to offer huge versatility while staying true to traditional, artisan skills and the use of high-quality leather.
In the autumn of 2020, the world still struggling to figure out ways to live and work during the covid-19 pandemic. Nevertheless, Seoul-based footwear designer Soojin Kim decided that the time was right, after travelling and studying overseas, for her to return to her native South Korea to launch her own handmade shoe brand, Then Korea.
She chose this time to launch because she felt the world was in sore need of shoes, boots and sandals inspired by serenity, the beauty of nature, naturalness, comfort and health. She picked the name because ‘Then’ looks back, in this case fondly, to styles and production practices of the past. The word also looks forward to things that will definitely happen again in the future.
Before the end of that first covid year, Then Korea’s shoes were selling on South Korean online shopping platforms 29CM and Hago. By 2021, the shoes were on offer in bricks-and-mortar shops, including in the Jeju Dream Tower island resort. Fashion and trade show participation followed, including a trip to Paris in September 2024, when the organisers of Seoul Fashion Week arranged a tie-up in the French capital with the Première Classe event.
Labour of love
This year, Then Korea went on to have a presence at APLF in Hong Kong in March and was included among the 12 Emerging Designers to feature at Micam in September. Orders from Europe and the US have been among the fruits of all these efforts so far, and the brand will have products on sale in a multi-label Korean fashion boutique in the Paris district of Le Marais until February 2026.
Each pair of shoes Then Korea produces represents a labour of love, Ms Kim says. She describes them as being skillfully crafted by talented artisans, but infused with a modern twist. She believes beauty lies in the imperfections and distinctive touches that only handmade shoes can offer, making each pair something of a work of art.
Off-centre
Styles include high boots, ankle boots, shoes in familiar loafer shapes, others that have distinctive square or pointed toes, heels of up to seven centimetres and eye-catching, off-centre lacing. These include the London loafer, which, in keeping with its name, is now on sale in London, at Shoreditch concept boutique 75RC. Ms Kim has used the same name and the same angled lacing idea for a whole range of styles, including the London flat shoe and the London sling-back. “I think always putting laces in the centre is boring,” she explains. “We need laces for convenience’s sake, but I wanted to do something new, something different with them.”
This was her own idea, but she insists that it presented no technical difficulty for the artisan footwear producers she works with. They took the challenge in their stride. These are artisan shoemakers who mostly work in the Seongsu-dong area of the Korean capital. Soojin Kim worked there, too, before her spell overseas. On her return, she says she found Seongsu-dong greatly changed. It is now a trendy area, full of warehouse cafés, galleries and boutiques. Many of the vibrant shoe factories that had been operating there before covid-19 had closed down and the artisans had moved to be able to continue working. Then Korea sought out craftspeople who were able to keep going in Seongsu-dong and now works with three ateliers there, each specialising in different products. Ms Kim does not refer to them as suppliers, or even as partners. She calls them her co-workers.
The long and the short of it
The leather she sources to create her collections also comes from South Korea, but includes a wide range of articles, including calfskin and lambskin, as well as conventional bovine leather. Her penchant for calfskin was on prominent view in Milan. The sleek, elegant Moia boot was popular with visitors to the Emerging Designers section of Micam. It offers two boots in one. The wearer can first pull on a soft calfskin leg cover to form the stock of a longer boot and, afterwards, attach a round-toed ankle boot in the same calfskin. Or, depending on her mood or preference, the wearer can opt for the ankle boots without the cover.
In a similar vein, the brand’s Heidi Button boots also attracted much attention. These function as a long boot, with a soft stock (for a “relaxed fit” on the leg) reaching to just below the knee. The same product transforms easily into an ankle boot; in this case, press-studs make the stock simple to attach and detach. “It’s a two-way style for variety,” Ms Kim explains. “It was my own idea. And I now have a version with two different covers so that you can choose from three different lengths. I think I thought of this because I need to have variety myself.”
Variety show
At the official Micam runway show, Then Korea’s Ronnie loafer for men, with a (mostly) smooth calfskin upper, was a stand-out. The non-smooth element of these shoes is the use of hair-on calfskin on the vamp. These are made-to-order only and not a stock product. For obvious reasons, there is plenty of variety in the hair-on look.
The ones that stole the show in Milan had vamps with the white-and-brown pied look of a Montbéliarde or similar breed of calf. For equally obvious reason, not even the left and right shoes in any pair have exactly the same look, all of which delights Ms Kim. “I like the variety,” she tells World Leather, “and customers like it too.”
Then Korea believes that beauty lies in the distinctive touches that only handmade shoes can offer.
Credit: Then Korea
