THE MIRROR, CRACKED: KWAK HYUN JOO REWRITES THE MALE GAZE FOR SPRING-SUMMER 2027 There is nothing nostalgic about Kwak Hyun Joo’s Spring-Summer 2027 collection. Mirroring begins with the Evil Queen’s looking-glass, but the reference is stripped of its fairy-tale decoration. What interests Kwak is not beauty itself, but the authority of the image — who controls it, who looks, and who is being looked at. That question gives the collection its edge. The clothes are deliberately composed around familiar codes of masculine dressing: exact suits, enlarged jackets, severe shirts and the controlled proportions of tailoring. Yet Kwak refuses to leave these conventions untouched. Seams are interrupted, volumes shifted and structures exposed. Elasticated sportswear details cut through the formality, giving the clothes movement without making them casual. This is where Kwak is at his strongest. He understands tailoring as a system rather than a uniform. Instead of replacing it with sportswear, ...