This collection was born inside a Hyundai, on a summer day in 2025, as we drove across South Korea in search of its most rural essence. I won’t lie to you: after more than two months living in the country, my days had been a succession of concrete, LED lights, and asphalt. I was beginning to fear that the traditional Korea I had imagined had already vanished under the weight of rapid modernization.

But suddenly, everything changed. The grey, heavy tones of the city gave way to the greens and golds of the rice fields, glowing vividly under the sun. We stopped almost instinctively, stunned by the beauty of the landscape. It felt as if time had paused there: farmers still worked the land with their bare hands, crickets replaced the orchestra of honking cars, and the breeze carried that freshness you only feel when you’re far from the noise of the world.

"How could a scene like this exist just a few miles from Seoul, one of the most modern and crowded cities on the planet?"

The most poetic moment—and the one that inspired this collection—came at the very end, as we were leaving. With the city’s skyline emerging on the horizon, I glanced one last time in the rearview mirror. There, in that small frame, a man continued working the soil with quiet dedication, as if framed by a window to another time. The car—like time itself—moved steadily toward the skyscrapers, toward the future, while his figure grew smaller, farther, more fragile. Like the past.

In that final reflection inside the Hyundai, we caught a glimpse of a Korea that is slowly fading; a past that still endures, yet drifts a little farther away each day. It felt like a powerful moment, a beautiful metaphor. And that is the origin of this collection.

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