Recto Studios

Recto Studios was founded in 2013 in Seoul by Korean designer Jung-hoon Lee as a contemporary luxury menswear-and-womenswear brand specifically focused on what Lee described as 'a deliberately-architectural Korean tailoring vocabulary anchored to contemporary Korean modernist visual culture and global luxury fashion-week positioning.' The brand has been one of the defining post-2013 Seoul-anchored contemporary-luxury brands. The Recto Studios vocabulary settled around several recurring elements: deliberately-architectural single-breasted blazers and trousers with deliberately-Korean-modernist proportional construction, deconstructed cotton-and-wool tailored separates with deliberately-architectural construction, hand-printed silk and cotton dresses with deliberately-minimalist aesthetic motif references, the brand's iconic Recto coat programme (a defining year-round contemporary-luxury outerwear product line), and a colour palette anchored to washed-black, oxblood, ecru, washed-charcoal, soft-pink, washed-cream, plus the brand's recurring use of traditional-Korean-aesthetic colour combinations. The brand has presented at Seoul Fashion Week each season since 2014. The brand is independent and held by Lee. Recto Studios operates approximately 20 retail flagship stores across South Korea — anchored to Seoul (Hannam-dong — the brand's home flagship; Cheongdam-dong; Apgujeong), Busan, plus international wholesale through SSENSE, MATCHES, Net-a-Porter, Lane Crawford, Boontheshop, and a curated set of contemporary-luxury-womenswear-and-menswear specialty retailers globally. The brand has been one of the more quietly disciplined post-2013 Korean-anchored 'architectural-luxury-tailoring' brands.