Rok Hwang

Rok Hwang is a South Korean fashion designer based in London. He is the founder and creative director of the label Rokh, which he established in 2016 after several years as a designer for Céline under Phoebe Philo. In 2018 he won the Special Prize of the LVMH Prize for Young Fashion Designers, and in 2019 he was added to the BoF 500 index of industry figures. and in 2024 he designed a collection for H&M.

Early life and education

Hwang was born in Seoul, South Korea, and raised in Austin, Texas, where his father, an economist, was studying; for a time the family lived in a caravan. He returned to South Korea to finish school, then moved to the United Kingdom at the age of 18, living in Nottingham before moving to London in 2004.

Career

Early career

After graduating, Hwang joined Céline in Paris, where he worked under Phoebe Philo as a ready-to-wear designer on her debut collection for the house. He stayed at Céline for three years, then worked as a freelance designer for Chloé and Louis Vuitton.

Paris Fashion Week debut

Rokh made its runway debut on February 25, 2019, opening Paris Fashion Week with a show staged in the basement of a former Monoprix supermarket. The Fall/Winter 2019 collection was titled "Teenage Nightmare" after Hwang's adolescence in Austin; he has named the work of Larry Clark and Gus Van Sant as early inspirations.

In March 2024, H&M announced Rokh as its next designer collaboration partner. His Fall/Winter 2025 collection took the British studio potter Lucie Rie as a reference and paired rigorous cuts with draped elements and hand-shredded ruffles. By 2025, menswear accounted for around 20 percent of Rokh's business.

Design approach

Rokh's clothes rework familiar garments: deconstructed trench coats, and traditional menswear fabrics cut into feminine silhouettes. Hwang has said he thinks of the process as reconstruction rather than deconstruction: "I like taking something that already exists and giving it new shape and meaning." Many pieces are made to be adjusted by the wearer: coats and trousers can be unbuttoned from the hem, and double-layered sleeves can be pushed up and tied on the upper arm. The trench coat, cut oversized and relaxed with tied sleeves that extend over the hand, became the label's signature piece. Fabrics are developed in-house and are the starting point of each collection.

Hwang has described the woman he designs for as "a little fragile, someone who is not that confident", and in the label's early collections models appeared with their faces covered.