Although she travels to Korea every year, Jenni Lee’s latest visit was extra special. The founder and designer behind sock and loungewear brand Comme Si travelled to Seoul—with her husband and toddler in tow—to celebrate and showcase her collaboration with USM Modular Furniture. Inspired by traditional Korean hanok architecture, the collection includes special edition loungewear and eight custom-designed furniture pieces, some of which incorporate Comme Si’s signature textiles. Below, Lee walks us through her trip, from the beauty products she picked up to the ‘80s-themed restaurant she called her “favorite.”
Dear ITG,
I’m writing to you after spending 10 days in Korea. I live in LA, but as a kid, I went there every summer to visit family. This time around, I went to showcase my custom furniture collection for USM in Seoul at 10 Corso Como. USM makes some of the best modular furniture around (if I do say so myself). My collection was inspired by Korean architects and traditional hanok designs, and then I customized the pieces even further by using linen from the company I founded, Comme Si. We debuted the furniture collection in New York, but it made a lot of sense to showcase it in Korea, too. So when the opportunity came about, my husband and I decided to use the trip to introduce the country to our toddler.
We specifically planned a daytime flight because we didn’t want to risk our son not sleeping on a red-eye and disturbing everyone else. The flight was a whopping 13.5 hours, but we landed in the evening. That’s actually a really good trick for jet lag on the way there because we went to bed as soon as the plane landed, and then we were ready to go the next day. Coming back is a different story though…
Before I travel, I usually do my nighttime skincare routine regardless of the time because I know it’s going to be extra dry on the plane. The main star is Aestura’s Atobarrier 365 cream. It’s been the number one winter cream in Korea for six years straight. I purchased it on my last trip to Korea actually. It’s amazing. And I have a little hard case kit that I always take with me. It has Beekeeper’s Naturals propolis throat spray so you don’t get sick, Laneige lip balm, Tamburins hand lotion, Purell, and Huxley face mist. I also had my Beauty of Joseon Relief Sun Aqua-Fresh SPF, Sulwhasoo Clarifying Mask, Medicube, and Aestura Atobarrier 365 Hydro Cera-HA Ampoule with me.
We stayed in the Yongsan district, which is near downtown Seoul, for the first half of the trip. It’s nice because it has a direct path to the Mount Namsan pass and forest. There’s a little kid’s forest, too. After a handful of days we moved over to the Grand Intercontinental Parnas Hotel in the Gangnam area because we wanted to be near 10 Corso Como. The hotel is actually attached to the COEX Mall—famous for its giant library and aquarium—so you can go directly from the hotel to the Hyundai department store inside. In Korea, department stores have everything from groceries to clothing. They even have a food court and proper fine dining restaurants. You could spend the whole day in them if you wanted to.
Of course the beauty shopping in Seoul was next-level. There were so many good products that I got overwhelmed. Rejuran’s face and neck cream is really popular right now. It has salmon sperm DNA, which people have been injecting into their skin, too. Honestly, when I went to one pharmacy, the pharmacist was super blunt and told me that it’s not going to magically change my skin. ‘It’s just another cream,’ he told me. I ended up showing him more products and he’d tell me if they were worth it or not. I did buy a couple of bottles of pharmaceutical D-Panthenol’s diaper rash cream. Like the Aestura moisturizer, it’s really good for dry or chapped skin. And there was so much at Olive Young, a health and beauty store, too. I got a bunch of lip products from Hince and a cushion foundation from Fwee for my mom.
I got some facial laser treatments right when I got to Korea. Since I had the Corso Como launch, I couldn’t do anything that was going to leave my face raw or unseemly, but I got Onda and Titanium. They target specific layers of the epidermis to tighten and lift. You’re supposed to do them in repetition for the best results, but I only had time to get them done two times. They told me I’d see a difference about two weeks later and that was definitely the case. I just looked refreshed and brighter.
We ate so much during the trip. We went to a lot of hole-in-the-walls. I loved how the restaurants didn’t have massive menus, just six or seven items that were all amazing. My favorite was Nanpo, this ‘80s-themed restaurant. I took my mom with my son, and she kept commenting how nostalgic the food was. Oh, and I was able to try Ashotchu, a popular drink that has a shot of espresso with a little bit of iced peach tea. The combination of the sweetness from the tea and the bitterness from the coffee was so yummy.
I try to go to Korea pretty frequently, and it’s always interesting to see how much things change, even in the span of a year. The retail environment is so innovative and it moves so quickly, so for me, it was really fulfilling to see people in a different market react to Comme Si and the exhibit overall. I didn’t grow up in Korea—I only visited—but I have a love for the traditional architecture and translating that into the furniture and having people who live there say that my perspective is a fresh interpretation was really, really amazing.
Love,
Jenni Lee
—As told to Daise Bedolla
Photographs courtesy of Jenni Lee and Comme Si
