Making Their Moque
The Korean-American brand makes its mark on children’s fashion.
Moque, a mashup of modern and unique, is a regular on the Playtime New York scene. The Moque booth is always chock-full of garments with clean sleek lines and pops of playful color—a robust collection of modern classics.
Designer Hyojung Ahn and her husband and operations and sales director, Hak Bin Ahn, are making a family business out of children’s wear. Hyojung comes from South Korea where she was a fabric designer and colorist for womenswear.
She changed her focus to children’s after the birth of her son, Marcus (now 4 ½ years old)—in order to add some life to the staid shapes and colors she saw on the market when shopping for him.
“Our hallmarks are fun color combinations with fabrics, bringing different silhouettes and structure to our designs,” says Hyojung. “All the different qualities that I like, I put them on a palette,” she adds. For Spring/Summer 2018, Hyojung’s palette has large dollops of coral, light green and hot pink with stripes. Not only fun and bold, the clothing also needs to be practical, the designer says, as a child’s active lifestyle demands it.
Her inspiration is simple: the kids themselves. She notes, “Children inspire me as they help me to create new designs from the way they run, play and talk.” Her own son is no exception, and Mommy and me designs are currently ranking high for her.
The design process happens in South Korea where they bring together their pattern makers, fabric suppliers and seamstresses. “We have multiple stages of pattern making and scaling to ensure the fit and structure looks better than the samples we showcased. It’s a long process and very detailed as we need to ensure everyone is in sync,” says Hak.
The life of an entrepreneur can be hard as far as social life is concerned, as it can be all consuming, but the couple says that they thrive in the environment which allows them to be themselves, and grow from feedback on the garments they produce.
Their cherished off-duty times are spent eating great food and throwing dinner parties with friends.
Hak says that Instagram is the primary place for getting the word out and finding strategic collaborations in the market. It’s been an exciting adventure to date they agree: the apex, they say, was when they were the final brand in a runway show at Times Square.
Now there’s a true ‘only in New York’ experience!
