Anyone can 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 Brooklyn and cutting her teeth at a series of prestigious fashion houses—from Jeremy Scott to Donna Karan, she knocked on the door of Oscar de la Renta in 2003, not knowing that she would remain there for the next 13 years working under De la Renta himself. She recalls the moment when her 21-year-old self caught the attention of the fashion mogul, by way of a book that she put together for his son. She describes the scene like a movie; first an invitation out of the blue to his grandiose mansion, where the man of the hour emerged in pajamas and offered her a position on his team.
Kim doesn’t exactly have an answer to how 13 years flew by just like that. But one can only guess that she worked tirelessly and got swept up in it all—from an intern to a design assistant to the design director until De la Renta’s passing in 2014. After being passed up for the top job (that had gone to Peter Copping at that point of time), Kim and Garcia resigned and channeled that pent-up rage into what would be a new fashion baby: Monse.
But the road to setting up a fashion label from scratch wasn’t easy. Assembling a starting capital aside, for the first six months, both Kim and Garcia fought hard to find their voice, outside of the Oscar de la Renta DNA. The duo then shopped around places like Bergdorf Goodman to present their ideas, whilst workshopping the brand’s ethos and designs along the way.
“Fernando and I were fascinated with this idea of a girl staying over at her boyfriend’s house and then going to work the next day in his clothes. Everything we design starts from menswear. I really thought of who our customer is, and I did not want to dress Oscar’s clients. Our girl, she is hustling; from the gym to the office to a cocktail party. We wanted to empower women by deconstructing menswear, ” says Kim on the Monse woman. And thankfully, because of their existing affluence in the fashion and celebrity scene, word quickly got out about Monse. Famous names like Sarah Jessica Parker and Amal Clooney were eager to front and support their designs even before a name was actually conceived. “By the time our first show started, people already knew what the brand was about,” adds Kim.
In a surprising turn of events, the duo was soon invited back to Oscar de la Renta as co-creative directors—a decision that Kim thinks could have only happened because of what they did with Monse. She affirms: “If I didn’t hustle for people to see me, they wouldn’t have called me back. I think they called me back because they saw how good Monse was.”
Today, the Monse woman is living her best life—adored and represented by many powerful women, including one recent appearance by Michelle Obama at the Democratic National Convention whilst Oscar de la Renta continues to flourish, abled by both Kim and Garcia’s innovative direction and guided by the legacy of the late de La Renta. A harmonious cohesion that Kim has managed in tandem to her personal preferences in her wardrobe. “As I get older, I appreciate Oscar’s product more. Even though I started out as a Monse girl, I think I’m now at a point where I can rock both.”
Nine years of managing and designing two differing labels and Kim remains that balancing the two voices is the easy part, whereas running the teams is the real challenge. As she chastises herself for over-committing to things despite never having enough time, it feels like nothing much has changed, she’s still a woman who works extremely hard, not if she can help herself. But one thing’s that different is the extra spaces she’s carved out to enjoy other things in life besides fashion. She also explicitly notes, she is working for herself. “When Oscar passed, I felt like my world crumbled. And I told myself, ‘I’m never tying myself to a brand ever again.’” She expresses her admiration for Meta’s Eva Chen, and follows in her footsteps in building her own empire—a quick scroll on her Instagram will tell you that—through nutritious recipes, effective workouts and aesthetically pleasing homeware. “For the next 40 years of my career, I don’t want to be that serious, untouchable designer,” she concludes.
