Rok Hwang and H&M Dare to Deconstruct

Cormac Newman March 19, 2024

Rok Hwang, high fashion’s favourite child, delivers a brand new collection with the continent-spanning retailer H&M, set to fly off the racks on April 18th, 2024. Stone grey shades pour over trench coat shells and dress trousers, blending with the sandy beige of a sharp-cut blazer; meanwhile, an undercurrent of deep charcoals, blacks, and whites runs through it all, weaving different looks together until the collection comes to a fluid, full-circle finish. Contemporary as the clothes may be, however, the story of Rokh and H&M starts roughly two decades prior — both parties began their meteoric rise in 2004.

In the fall of that year, London’s Central Saint Martins welcomed a young Rok Hwang to their menswear program. By 2009, Hwang was a promising student in their graduate school, with his graduate collection earning the L’Oréal Professionnel Creative Award and the attention of womenswear legend Phoebe Philo. Upon her request, Hwang joined Philo’s team as a ready-to-wear designer, prepping Philo’s debut collection for Celine. Subsequent stints at Chloe and Louis Vuitton proved Hwang to be something of a style savant, leading Hwang to establish his eponymous label, Rokh, in 2016. Instantly, the clothing made a splash: Hwang tears apart conventions, sewing new silhouettes from the rubble. It’s like he used fashion’s first words to write a new language — familiar roots are repositioned in bold, forward-thinking context.

At the same time, H&M launched an iconic black-and-white advertisement to announce a seismic shift of its own. Roughly two minutes of vintage, upper-crust aesthetics — patterned wallpaper, massive chandeliers, silk shirts with tight-collars, bowties, and (of course) tuxedos — filled the video to usher in the Swedish retailer’s new era. Over a white-tablecloth dinner, a stuffy-looking man cries out: “Karl! Karl — is it true?!” to which the (in)famous Karl Lagerfeld declares with ruthless German accent: “Of course it’s true.” Soon after, the ad reveals that Lagerfeld and H&M are teaming up for a collaboration of their own; as the dinner guest protests “but it’s cheap!” Lagerfeld is quick to dismiss him: “What a depressing word. It’s all about taste,” he quips to the camera. “If you’re cheap, nothing helps.”

“We fell for Rok Hwang’s unique way of working with tailoring. His designs are very inventive and quite conceptual in some ways, but still very easy to wear, which is a balance our customers love.”

Ann-Sofie Johansson, creative director at H&M.

Accordingly, the Lagerfeld x H&M campaign made history. For H&M, a massive retailer with an accessible atmosphere, to join forces with a luxury titan like Lagerfeld was unheard of. Yet, their team-up introduced Lagerfeld to a new audience and granted H&M some serious Fashion Week street cred, effortlessly elevating their brand. Since then, H&M has linked up with the likes of Balmain, Stella McCartney, Jimmy Choo, and Versace, selling out each collection in record time. With Rokh joining their ranks, Hwang proves that — while his hands can design silhouettes for days — it’s his discerning eye for collaboration that will catapult Rokh to fashion stardom.

“We’ve been keeping an eye on Rokh for a few years now,” says Ann-Sofie Johansson, creative director at H&M. “We fell for Rok Hwang’s unique way of working with tailoring. His designs are very inventive and quite conceptual in some ways, but still very easy to wear, which is a balance our customers love.”

‘Easy to wear’ is a recurring theme in Hwang’s designs. When he collaborated with Canada Goose and Matt McCormick last fall, Hwang let his friends take the garments for a test drive to ensure they felt natural on the streets. “My pieces can also be easily integrated with any other styles — rather than a full look of head-to-toe Rokh, it makes me so happy, personally, to see how people wear the pieces with the rest of their wardrobe, in their own way,” Hwang says. “I want to offer decisive designs that also allow for an individual approach to styling. I’m so excited to see how people wear the pieces.”

Don’t mistake wearability for dullness, though. The clothes accessible, to be sure, but the designs are still far from safe. “My design language is something that you have to pay attention to notice — a garment might have quite a classical appearance, but when you look closer, the cut is often quite radical,” Hwang says. “I pay very close attention to detail and I love to make something that is oddly beautiful.”

With Rokh x H&M, this ‘odd beauty’ comes to life as a daring venture into deconstruction. Hwang playfully bends the narrative of “office-dressing,” taking inspiration from ’80s professional wear to subvert established dress codes with new silhouettes. “My inspiration comes from real-life situations, particularly from workplaces,” the designer explains. “The working woman for me is always the aspirational figure. I’ve been lucky enough to be surrounded throughout my career by inspiring women, from my mother to Phoebe Philo who I worked for at Céline, and when I think back, they were always working really hard. That attitude, how you engage life in full force, is something I continue to be inspired by today.”

It’s a cohesive blend, defined by a palette of khaki, graphite, cream, and onyx. Still, there’s plenty of variety: chic double belts alter the tone of trousers while blazers adapt to elevated streetwear or business-casual.

This sense of adaptability was an integral aspect of the collection, Hwang explains. “I love to incorporate customizable elements in the individual garments. Our multi-button coat, for instance, has a section that can be unbuttoned so that you can wear it in lots of different combinations. I’ve seen customers wearing it upside down, inside out — not something I ever intended, but it was amazing to see! I wanted to have that element of personalization in this collection.”

In this respect, Rokh x H&M honours the versatile essence of the garments; coats, belts, and blazers are made to suit an array of climates and dress codes. “The trench coats are the instantly recognizable Rokh designs, they’re great as they can be worn in lots of different ways according to your own personal style,” adds Johannson. “I love the studded blazer, I think it’s got attitude but is also easy to slip over a T-shirt and wear with a pair of jeans. I think the belts are fantastic — they lend a kind of punk-ish element to a look without overpowering it, and they’re easy to combine with existing pieces in your wardrobe to get the ‘Rokh’ look.”

Designing such customizable clothing, however, Rokh x H&M ran the risk of flying too close to the sun — try to be all things to all consumers, and ‘versatility’ can become ‘vanilla’ — but Hwang managed to avoid this fate. Diving into his archives, the designer expresses Rokh’s identity with enunciation and clarity.

“I was also lucky that H&M gave me so much freedom to present Rokh to the world,” Hwang says. “This collection is very true to our icons and our codes. I think it’s helped me hone our identity even further to pick out the most versatile designs, which to me is a very sustainable idea, as it means that people will love and wear these pieces again and again.”

In a sense, Rokh x H&M is something of a debutante for the label. Aided by H&M’s global reach, Rokh taps into new audiences, introducing itself with forward-thinking fashion for the discerning shopper. “It feels like a milestone for us,” Hwang says of the project, “and fundamentally, a great opportunity to engage with more people all over the world, especially those who have never come across Rokh before. I hope people will love it.”

“It’s important to us to be able to support and lend our global platform to young talents in the fashion industry and introduce their work to more people. We felt that Rokh had established a very strong identity in a short space of time.”

Ann-Sofie Johansson, creative director at H&M.

That’s part of H&M’s approach to collaboration. Johannson explains that the retailer seeks to incorporate emerging talent with an international outlook. Hwang, whose personal and professional pursuits have brought him from South Korea to Texas and London to Paris, is a perfect match, Johannson says.

“It’s important to us to be able to support and lend our global platform to young talents in the fashion industry and introduce their work to more people. We felt that Rokh had established a very strong identity in a short space of time. The brand also has a very international perspective, which aligns well with our philosophy at H&M.”

This philosophy extends to H&M storefronts, which feature bespoke collections for select locales. Japan and South Korean customers will find exclusive items in stores, including a slick, multi-button trench coat made from leather. This further emphasizes that clothing shapes identity, whether that’s through the materials it’s made from or the manner in which it’s worn.

Johannson, who called Rokh “the cutting-edge of fashion,” said that Rok Hwang himself was an incredible teammate. “On a personal level, I have to say that Rok and his team have been such a pleasure to work with. He was very generous, sharing his key pieces, and he has very strong attention to detail that meant that each piece feels really special and considered,” Johannson says. That authenticity comes through; warm, inviting, and playful, the clothing begs visitors to shrug on a coat and feel the hype for themselves.

Rokh x H&M is available online and in select stores as of April 18, 2024.