Korean-American designer Yoon Ahn’s Ambush blueprints a new era for luxury brands.
“Nice jewellery and a boy’s corpse,” was how Japanese writer Koushun Takami portrayed the intense confrontation scene between Takako Chigusa and Mitsuko Souma in his genre-defining millennial novel Battle Royale. The book, which paved the way for many a dystopian franchise, concerned a group of ninth graders forced into bloodshed on a remote island. As well as the two dozen teenagers, the island was a character of its own, as were the school uniforms.
As featured in Kinji Fukasaku’s live-action adaptation of the novel, those outfits became the prime focus of Yoon Ahn’s autumn/ winter 2023 collection for Ambush. Here’s how she evolved the storytelling: the metaphorical kids from her rave-themed spring/summer 2023 season partied a tad too hard in their bunny-shaped balaclavas and chain tops, and were sent to a private school. From there, Ahn conjures a paradox in which the uniform, a symbol of conformity, becomes a means of individual expression. “What is individuality in the world where sameness is encouraged everywhere?” she asks. “How do we add individuality to something as restrictive as a uniform?”
Ahn turns to music. “Dark techno set the pace for this season, because I tend to tie collections to music,” she explains, “and the repetitive nature of the genre’s beats helped guide the uniform concept. It’s not as twisted or colourful as a rave. It’s repetitive and a little darker.”
Ahn is no sybarite, but rather an aesthetic scholar. As an artist, she’s guided by philosophies she discovers in her quest for ceaseless learning; that much is clear from the doctrine behind her autumn/winter 2023 collection. “If you look at the big picture, some people say they exercise their individuality, but everyone still puts on the same uniform of a certain trope that they play,” she says. “We never graduate from high school.”
And there you have it: genderless silhouettes conveyed by oversized shirts presented in a concise monochromatic palette, miniskirts and wide shorts styled with boiled wool cardigans, a leather jacket here, a bomber there. And Ahn’s personal favourite: “A fake fur coat that looks like it’s been lifted from grandma’s closet or thrifted” (as the show notes describe it) offsets the collection’s austerity with a pleasing moment of elegant repartee. Her signature workwear elements are made sexier in parkas styled with more miniskirts, and familiar rave boots. Coats with harnesses on the chest, jackets tailored to wrap around the shoulders and double-belted bottoms are the very accents that provide the collection with both depth and darkness. You can imagine these pupils sneaking out of their rooms at the Ermitage International school, just outside Paris, to attend some viral illegal rave in the catacombs. Few designers can create a world so vivid and personal in just 36 looks.
In the circles of streetwear connoisseurs, Tokyo-based Ahn is often considered the late Virgil Abloh’s natural successor, heralded as being a definitive source of innovation, inspiration and information in the space. Having gained acclaim among fashion’s elite for her renowned jewellery pieces – the POW! Pendant, for example, famously adored by Kanye West and Kim Jones (who later welcomed her to Dior Homme as its jewellery director) – she pioneered haute streetwear collaborating with the big guns – Bvlgari, Sacai, Converse, Gentle Monster, Off-White and, bien sûr, Louis Vuitton.
As effortless as Ahn’s collaborations might feel, her pursuit of innovation is meticulous and purposeful. Last year, she launched SILVER FCTRY, a metaverse space designed in partnership with American digital creative agency Active Theory. The title, of course, evokes Andy Warhol’s Factory, the silver- clad studio where artists, actors and models would consort and collaborate.
The structure of the metaverse, Ahn explains, is reminiscent of a spaceship, with four distinct areas: ODEUM, WORKSHOP, LIBRARY and PARK. As we journey inter-dimensionally inside the Ambush universe, we’re greeted by “a space with a giant screen to display videos, such as our seasonal campaigns and fashion shows”: ODEUM. Then, if metaphorical space explorers yearn for the comfort and familiarity of the earthly retail experience, they can visit the WORKSHOP filled with digital and physical offerings, which replicates the brand’s physical stores. LIBRARY houses a compendium of images and videos from Ambush’s past projects. And then there’s PARK – a portal into a dream world, where patrons with Ambush NFTs can enjoy the company of their tribal peers and indulge in virtual parties and treasure hunts.
While metaverse hysteria is on the decline (or at least compared to this time last year), Ahn is one of the few luxury players who use the technology behind it as a tool to drive business into a new age – talk about a spaceship. Instead of relying on the perceived prowess of giants like Sandbox and Decentraland, Ambush strikes out on its own, eschewing compromise on fidelity or creative control.
“In retrospect, I see most users embracing the idea of short-term investment and returns in NFTs,” she explains, “but we saw Web3.0 as a technology to garner a new type of membership access.” Et voila! The items from three collections of NFTs Ambush launched in the past – POW!, REBOOT and GITD – are now entrance passes to the most coveted circles of the brand’s infrastructure. “The fact that you can put wearables on the NFTs is mind-blowing,” Ahn adds. “We experimented with a pair of sneakers we introduced during NFT NYC last year – AMBUSH x Zellerfeld 100S – a physical pair that came with an NFT. It granted access to digital sneakers that the avatar could ‘wear’ in multiple virtual spaces, including SILVER FCTRY.”
Digital fashion has, of course, been the subject of several scathing op-eds and is far from being accepted dress code. But whatever one’s hot take on the movement, it’s already changing the way the industry behaves. “The definition of ‘luxury’ evolved with the adoption and acceleration of Web 3.0, and the booming of the gaming industry over the last few years,” Ahn says. Who could forget the MetaBirkin trial, which Hermès won against digital artist Mason Rothschild? “The line between physical and digital is forever blurred for future luxury consumers, forcing designers to imagine beyond the expectations of the traditional fashion business,” she continues. “Fashion will not only be about social signalling but will need to embody the culture and have multiple utilities in various environments to satisfy consumers.”
“The whole Earth is made of human passion projects,” Ahn once said. Just like many of the ambitious inventions that started this way, Ambush might well be the blueprint for luxury brands to soar into a new era.