BY SUMI JO AS TOLD TO CUTCOMMON
Sumi Jo is a Grammy-award winning coloratura soprano. The Korean opera star returns to Australia this month for her Mad for Love tour. In this blog and gallery, Sumi explores her dual passions for fashion and music.
For much of my career, I was dressed by the amazing Korean designer André Kim. André created over 300 dresses for me over the years. It was so sad when he passed away several years ago. Since then, I have been dressed by Seo Seung Yeon at Denicheur.
André was famous for his more Asian style of design, but my new designer is mixing and blending styles from East and West. She’s so talented, and understands perfectly what kind of dresses I need for my repertoire. It’s a very important thing – that the dresses I wear match with the songs that I sing, that they contribute to the emotion. It’s like when I’m singing a baroque piece, I want to wear something that has the colour, style and atmosphere of what I’m singing. So, we borrow from elements of the styles of music that I’m working with.
I avoid dark colours on stage because I think bright colours are more hopeful, more positive, and create a good experience under the lights. It will be rare that you see me in deep reds or blues or black. Possibly when I perform some styles, but for the most part I prefer to keep my stage fashion light, bright, cheerful and feminine.
Living in Europe, where much of my work is, I receive many proposals from the big fashion houses and brands. I’ve been offered sponsorship and dresses, but somehow I prefer Denicheur’s dresses because as an Asian performer, it’s nice to feel a little bit of an Asian touch. I feel as a performer I’m unique and a little bit special with my background and personality, so my dresses have to represent the same. I love European fashion, but my Korean heritage is always with me. It’s nice to be able to combine these two things into something unique and special, a little bit like me.
Sometimes, I only get to wear a dress a few times. The designer is constantly producing new ideas and proposing new designs. My designer and I agree that giving a recital means we not only share music, and my ability, but that the fashion is fundamental to the experience – audiences want to hear beautiful music, but they also want to the beauty on stage too. They want to experience beauty with more than just one sense. It’s why I adore beautiful jewellery to wear with some gowns. I love wearing gorgeous jewels, not just because I feel beautiful and important when I wear them, but because I always consider my audience first – I will do anything to make them happy.
There have been times that I have had almost a million dollars in jewels on me on stage, and that can be scary – I’m afraid I might lose an item! But even though that can make me a little bit nervous, the feeling I have on stage with these beautiful things is something I cannot describe. It feels to me the perfect package, that makes me feel beautiful and ready to perform – it’s the maximum respect for my audience.
I’ll do anything to honour my audience. It’s like preparing a beautiful table and home for dinner guests – you love them, and you respect them by creating this experience. That’s how I feel about my audience.
GALLERY – The fashion of Sumi Jo
This is one of my favourite mermaid-line dresses. I like this silhouette very much because it is always fashionable, contemporary and creates a beautiful line on the body. The designer created this using a white silk, with a ribbon and lace applique.
White is always good on stage because it captures the light. It’s one of the dresses I prefer to wear beautiful jewels with, like Van Cleef and Arpels.
This dress was created for the cover of my German language album Ich Leibe Diche. The designer used tiered layers of gold and silver fabrics to create a huge volume, and hand-beaded the bodice with Swarovksi beads.
It’s a beautiful couture dress that I still have, but I cannot tour with. This dress weighs 57 kilograms, and takes two people to carry and help me with it, so it’s impossible to tour.
This is the dress we selected for the Mad for Love tour image. It’s made from green lace and silk, with hand-applied feather and sequins. The designer was inspired by the peacock when making it. It’s a subtle mermaid-line dress that is quite long, with a silk train at the base.
This dress was designed for me to wear to my UNESCO Artist for Peace ceremony. Created using a sky-blue silk and sequined lace in black, it’s a strong, sophisticated dress that is also very sexy, with an open midriff that has a very sheer silk lace over the top. The hand-beading makes it sparkle.
Another mermaid-line gown, I love this gown for occasions where I want to feel more demure, even angelic! It makes me feel glamorously humble. I have worn this more than some other gowns as it is a good dress for recitals and children’s or charity concerts. I like for when I am performing to help communities and fundraising.
The first time I wore this gown was in Paris. It is an ivory-green damask pattern silk gown with an oblique neckline and beautiful hand-detailing on the shoulder strap. It feels very modern to me, but then also very unique and traditional at the same time.
This a good example of mixing styles – of the Korean meeting the European – it is a mélange of traditions. It is produced in Korean silk, and you can see the gold, shiny pink, and green are made from this special textile that is usually reserved for traditional Korean costume. But here, they have been used to make a Western-style dress.
It is a marriage between the two worlds, and was the first time I had used traditional textiles with a very westernised evening gown.
On the right side of the dress, you can see a special Korean accessory. This accessory was once only made for members of the royal family, for princesses and queens. It belongs to the very highest level of society, and I feel honoured to wear it.
It feels to me to be very feminine with the off-shoulder design, but it has many layers, three underskirts, and weighs 23 kilos.
Sumi Jo will perform Mad for Love this July 15 in Adelaide, 17 in Melbourne, 19 in Sydney, and 21 in Brisbane. She will perform with José Carbó, accompanied by pianist Guy Noble who will also conduct the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra.
Images supplied.
