Anyone could look at Laura Kim and wonder how she does it all. Presently co-creative director at Oscar de la Renta alongside Fernando Garcia, who happens to be her co-founder for their self-made brand Monse, she too recently made her debut in the homegoods department with Crate & Barrel. It takes a special kind of drive and resilience to design and lead not one but two major fashion maisons; a light that hasn’t dimmed since the start of Kim’s career.
As she sits before me ahead of a special Gushcloud event at The Edition Singapore, the 42-year-old is basking in the afterglow of Taylor Swift’s VMAs appearance , where the Grammy-winning artist wore a custom futuristic Monse ensemble. No question here, Kim is a woman who works —and it has been this way since she left South Korea for the States as a young adult in pursuit of an academia in fashion. A path that could only be largely credited to her grandmother who worked in textile and taught her how to sew, as well as her parents, who fully supported her American dream in blind faith.
She sheepishly confesses: “The reason why I worked so hard at the start wasn’t really because I was passionate, I just felt so bad. College tuition in America is so expensive and if you study fashion, just the raw materials you have to buy, it’s crazy. Add to that, living in New York makes it even worse.
My parents weren’t wealthy and for them to pay for that education, I felt so bad.” After an education in Pratt Institute in Brook.