Introducing K’ANG

This last January during men’s fashion week in Paris I visited the showroom of a new brand called K’ANG, and it was one of the most exciting discoveries of that week for a couple of reasons. First, there hasn’t been much going on in the avant-garde space that StyleZeitgeist has championed since its inception in 2006 as a forum for men’s fashion enthusiasts. That niche has exploded and then imploded, with few survivors and few newcomers. Juyoung Kang, the designer of K’ANG, the brand he launched in 2023, has apprenticed with some of the best of the avant-garde – namely, Maurizio Amadei of m.a.+ and Deepti Barth, the former right hand of Carol Christian Poell. At DEEPTI, he assisted with pattern making and fabric sourcing, and at m.a.+ he also designed menswear and womenswear across all product categories.

Kang’s own work carries the imprint of his experience in the precision of his tailoring and in the unexpected edge found in the details that elevate the tailoring from the realm of apparel to that of fashion. The tailoring is further hardened by mixing some excellent leather pieces, themselves set apart from being mere archetypes by interesting seamwork and the choice of leathers that hark to something primal and animalistic. But K’ANG is also cutting out his own territory in a silhouette that is more forgiving than one that his mentors propose. There is also a softer, more dandyish quality to K’ANG’s aesthetic that feels fresh against the backdrop of self-seriousness of the avant-garde space.

The second reason why K’ANG merits attention is in the uncompromising quality of the work. Quality remains one of the biggest issues when it comes to the work of many young designers. Kang graduated from Polimoda in 2013, but he looks so young that you could easily imagine him graduating from a fashion school yesterday; and yet, his clothes carry the heft and substance of a fully realized brand, with a sense of authority of a mature designer. The quality of construction and finishing of K’ANG clothing is meticulous, the fabrics feel luxurious, and the attention to detail is at the highest level. After his apprenticeship at m.a.+ Kang has made a conscious decision to remain in Rome, so he can be close to Italian fabric sources and manufacturing (some fabrics also come from Japan). 

Rome holds a continuous source of fascination for Kang. This latest collection that I saw in Paris was inspired by the Appian Way, one of the earliest paved roads built by the Romans. The stone latticework of the road is reinterpreted in the patchwork of the coats and on the hems of the pants and the shirt cuffs. Other stand out pieces were a brilliant gray denim worker jacket and a gray tailored shirt with a modular hem. 

The brand has already been picked up by key shops like L’Eclaireur in Paris, Hide-M in Munich, and Boutique Roma in Zurich. All said, we think that K’ANG merits attention and we will be following his work closely.

K’ANG WEBSITE | INSTAGRAM