ChoTime
Downtown Darling Ben Cho Goes Minimalist
The name Benjamin Cho has perhaps become synonymous with “downtown” in the world of fashion. After all, the 29-year-old Parsons drop-out is not only the designer who The Misshapes and Chloe Sevigny love to support, but is also the DJ who hosts his own Sunday night party at Sway, manning the booth to a slew of Morrissey songs and hits by The Smiths.
So it’s somewhat interesting that Cho thinks his designs, rather than belonging on hipsters with asymmetrical haircuts, are really for “rich uptown women.”
Certainly, whereas Cho’s Spring ’07 collection featured big, elaborate zippers zig-zagging across oversized hearts and loose, androgynous tees on boys and girls, his Fall ’07 collection started out muted: skinny peg-leg pants, big satin v-necks, little black cocktail numbers, and slinky sequined dresses. “This season was very minimal, larger, bolder,” Cho claimed.
By bold, he certainly meant the details, which is where Cho shines. Large, multi-faceted jewels adorned the simple dresses, and winged butterflies or even mannequin hands grasped at the edges of others. Cho’s design process started out with “very simple basic basic shapes and silhouettes.” Then he added the extras. But “when you take all those things off, they’re just basic dresses.” Cho, who admitted that he has always been very technically skilled and detail-oriented, is finally starting to look at “the big picture.”
But that doesn’t mean that Cho has lost any of the grit or grunge from his prior days slaving away on one piece in the small apartment that he shared with Milla Jovovich. These days, he still maintains a “grass roots operation,” making all of his pieces “at his apartment with fifteen people helping [him] out.” And all the otherworldly details—the hands, heart pendants, butterfly wings—are hand made. Cho is still very much the passionate perfectionist of his youth. “I’ve been on edge all week,” he said with a rueful grin.
So let’s face it—Cho may have grown up and he may have streamlined the design process, but he’s always going to have the quirks that set him one step ahead of the jersey-and-leggings crowd. “It’s a little bit eccentric,” he finally let on. “Maybe uptown museum stuff. Definitely not for a [lady at a] luncheon.” Because after all, the Ben Cho girl is not the girl who gladly follows trends in a sea of pastel tweed and pencil skirts, but the girl who creates them—one hand-stitched jewel at a time.