Welcome to Planet Yoon

After working various roles in graphic design, including the BAPE women’s line with Nigo and press for Pharrell Williams’ Billionaire Boys Club and Ice Cream, Ahn launched AMBUSH in 2008. Initially specializing in jewelry, the POW! line emerged as an early breakthrough, rendering comic book-inspired graphics in precious metals and stones like gold, diamonds and rubies. The high-wattage, extravagant aesthetic resonated with a hip-hop community already flirting with pop styling and the more experimental side of luxury, as immortalized in an instantly iconic photo of Kanye West, Virgil Abloh, Don C and others at Paris Fashion Week in 2009. There was no looking back.

AMBUSH thrived, launching its first ready-to-wear collection in 2015. Traversing genres with a streetwear attitude, genderless vision and luxury sleight of hand, an LVMH Prize nomination came two years later, followed by a Paris runway debut that drew Japanese fashion royalty like Chitose Abe, Jun Takahashi and Hiroshi Fujiwara to the front row. Achievements attract eyeballs, and inevitably, others were eager to touch down on Planet Yoon.

From Bvlgari, Beyonce and Uniqlo to UNDERCOVER, Nike, Coca-Cola, Converse and Rimowa, AMBUSH’s cavalcade of cultural power brokers reflects the founder’s exacting taste. Whether it’s sneakers, sake cups, Starbucks cold brews or the bread and butter of jewelry, in the climate of collaboration, Ahn is a main player in controlling the temperature. But one kindred spirit in her Rolodex is more influential than the rest.

“I think we first met backstage at a Teriyaki Boyz show sometime in the mid-2000s,” says Kim Jones of Ahn. “I always liked her work and kept an eye on her career. I already wanted to work with her when I was working for Louis Vuitton. We didn’t have the chance to do it there so when I started my job at Dior, I felt it was the right moment.”

In 2018, Jones joined Dior Men as artistic director, underscoring his status as the world’s most sought-after designer. As he got his chess pieces in place, one of his first moves was to appoint Ahn as creative director of jewelry, forming an elite backroom cast alongside chief aide Lucy Beeden, milliner Stephen Jones and ALYX’s Matthew Williams. One of the most enduring images of the burgeoning streetwear-luxury crossover era came when Jones and Ahn—hands locked together beneath the gaze of a 33-foot-tall KAWS BFF sculpture—took a bow during the former’s debut Spring/Summer 2019 show.

The menswear savant made his mark on the London fashion scene just out of college at famed design school Central Saint Martins, when John Galliano bought his student collection fresh off the catwalk. Like Ahn, his uncanny ability to translate the elusive cool codes of streetwear into the language of luxury desire has taken things like anoraks, drop-crotch pants and elbow-patch cardigans to a completely new plane of modernity.

In this candid exchange, Jones calls up Ahn over Zoom for a discussion on innovation that falls down a rabbit hole of memories. Travel, nature, technology, futurism, fashion and, naturally, house pets are just a few of the subjects broached throughout the exchange. Friends first and colleagues second, the pair are curious citizens of the world on the same relentless path of discovery. This is Yoon Ahn by Kim Jones.

Kim Jones: Hi, Yoon. Where are you currently?

Yoon Ahn: I’m in Tokyo. I just got back from Hong Kong last night.

KJ: I got back from India the day before yesterday. We didn’t end up doing the [Dior Pre-Fall menswear] show in Hong Kong, so I was like, “I’m going on holiday.”

YA: Everyone was still in Hong Kong for Art Basel, so we were like, “Oh, if the show happened, it would’ve been super fun.” It was funny because everywhere we looked, they would still have the Dior signs up in random places. In the middle of the highway, it says “Dior” by the exit.

KJ: How was Hong Kong?

YA: It was good. It had been a year. I went out for Art Basel last year, but this time it was to do a talk. I caught up with friends, ate good food and came back. I was really curious if there were any younger emerging talents in the scene over there, so I was catching up with everybody.

KJ: Speaking of catching up, when you first came to Dior, were you intimidated by the history and size of the house or was it something that you got excited for?

YA: I don’t think “intimidated” is the word for it. It was more like you imagine what Disney World is like and everything that happens, but then you get to see behind the scenes and how all those things get made. It was a huge dream and an amazing experience. I’d never worked at a fashion house before, so working under you and just observing, watching, listening and all that stuff, it was a crash course in how things get done.

KJ: Bringing all my friends and people who are talented in, like you, Yoon, was a great way of starting it. We just went in running. We didn’t think too much, we just got on with it. The [debut Spring/Summer 2019] show was really fun. It almost felt like a concert. Everyone was there and the energy was really good.

YA: I definitely felt like the Dior era that you brought in was much more delicate. To me, Vuitton was a travel story, and I know you travel to so many different places, so I see a direct connection. There’s something much more elegant and refined that you brought to Dior. I found it and still find it really beautiful; there’s much more sensitivity and emotion. The color palette is beautiful, it’s almost like watercolors. A lot of florals. There’s a beauty that I feel like was missing in menswear at that time. You brought that.

KJ: Thank you. I don’t really think too much because I’m working constantly. I’m processing it all, but I don’t have a way to describe it. It’s just getting on with the process and reinventing it each season. It’s finding the signatures and keeping those together and then bringing in newness. Whether you collaborate with an artist or you’re just looking at a new part of the archive, things work in different ways. Did your experiences working with the team at Dior feed into your process at AMBUSH or with other projects?

YA: Everything I’ve learned at Dior has fed into other areas of my work and vice versa. Everything that I’ve learned at different places also came into Dior: being able to tell them what I want to work with, maybe simplify things a little bit more. It was fun. I use the word “fun” loosely, but I can’t really think of any other word. It’s such a simple word, but it sums it up.

The fact that the house is based in Paris with a different group of people—the way they look at, think about and execute things was different from what I was used to in Asia or even America. I felt very privileged and blessed to go in and out in different places and tap dance and work around different types of people. It was joyful, you know what I mean? The energy was amazing.

KJ: It was that first season when everyone came into the studio. It was like a daytime block party and it was so full-up and crazy and fun and nice and it’s a very, very good memory.

YA: What’s so wonderful about the way you run the studio, Kim, is your generosity and kindness towards everyone. It’s infectious; it feels mandatory for all of us to adopt the same cool demeanor. You’ve always been so nice and warm and you even play good music. You lift the energy.

KJ: When you ask someone to work with you, you trust them because you know they’re good. The industry always talks about female leaders. I’ve worked with you, I’ve worked with Donatella Versace, I’ve worked with Silvia Fendi and all of them inspire me. Lucy Beeden as well. It’s that sensitive side and the practicality of it all. It just goes and goes and goes.

It’s important to work with other people because you learn something; you listen to them and it brings new things in. You can’t do these things without the teams, so when anyone comes into the studio and they talk to everyone, that for me is a successful collaborator. What is the one essential attribute that makes a good creative collaborator for you?

YA: Ego. I always tell my team the product has to be emotional, not the process.

KJ: Exactly. We’ve known each other so long and I love what you do. I’m curious about your creative process. Do you approach ideas with a blank slate that you slowly fill up with ideas and references, or do you apply a more methodical approach?

YA: It’s all about storytelling, so before you get to the core of the products, you have to think about how everything’s going to play out in the long run. Every season is going to bleed into the next season; how that’s going to spread throughout the world. It’s not just a fashion show. Everything that’s taking place in the fashion show is going to carry on until the next season.

KJ: With Dior, it’s always by looking in the archive. With Fendi, it’s different because the archive is a very different thing. But with Dior, it’s very clear. We start with the archive. There are always new pieces being brought into Dior. Then you build the story around it and develop the collection from there.

I always think firstly of the show, music and how it’s going to look as a whole, working backward in a way. That helps me a lot because you see the bigger picture and then you can start working on the smaller picture. It’s quite difficult for a large brand if you don’t have the big picture in place first.

YA: I’m a big-picture person, too. It’s more fun to think about the big things and then connect the dots afterward. You’ve been doing fashion shows now for how long, two decades?

KJ: I know. It’s weird. I do look back at stuff, but I’m not nostalgic. I like to get on with things. I don’t think too much about the past, but I do reference a lot of my very early work from when I had my own label because it feels like it’s relevant again. I think that’s quite fun. How do you keep yourself excited season after season? What kind of innovations do you try to introduce?

YA: For me, innovation comes from a different place than the high-fashion system because I come more from street culture, but I’m not like the old-school street culture—I don’t really define myself in that category. But because I do have interests in so many different industries and I do meet so many different people, I always try to see how I can use fashion as a platform to create something different and unique. Fashion doesn’t necessarily mean clothes to me. Clothes can be one of the mediums, but it can be defined in different forms as well.

KJ: With us it’s fabric development and how we use technology to produce new collections. Obviously we have larger budgets to do shows at Dior, so doing the showman side of things and working on sets and working directly with musicians to make music is something that interests me. Having a conversation with Max Richter about composing a new piece is exciting to me now because it’s a different approach to how I’ve done things before. I’ve worked with a lot of musicians. I’ve worked with Nile Rodgers, Michael Stipe, Giorgio Moroder—all these people that I admired growing up.

It’s amazing to know these people and make things together, like working with Travis Scott to make a soundtrack for the show. That keeps it exciting. You do sometimes think, “God, I’ve got to do another collection now, what am I going to do?” Something will pop into your head out of nowhere. That gives you a new lease of energy. What about on the product side? What was the last genuinely innovative product—fashion-related, electronics or anything else—that profoundly impacted your life? For me that’s difficult. That feels a while ago. Everyone just lives on their iPhone, don’t they? Thank you, Jony Ive.

YA: I just picked up the Apple Vision. It’s a lot of fun. I think we’re going to go more into simulation like the recent story with Elon Musk’s Neuralink, where the guy was able to play chess after being fitted with a brain chip. I think in the not-too-distant future we’re going to be in a completely different place because of this technology. I’m looking forward to it.

KJ: I look at that stuff excitedly, but also in a slightly nervous way because the world is so volatile at the moment. I feel a little bit apprehensive about things, but I’m always optimistic at the same time.

YA: A lot of these technological developments make me appreciate the earth and nature even more. The more we detach from reality, the more consequences it will have on our environment. Despite everything going on, I find myself wanting to travel even more and maximize my time to be in places and connecting with people in person. Do you feel the same way?

KJ: Oh my god, yeah. I need to be in nature more and more, that’s for sure. I was thinking that on my walk to work this morning while walking through Hyde Park. Just the idea of being in India for 10 days and you’re in a tent and there’s something outside at three in the morning—it could be a tiger, it could be a leopard—I like that. I like the idea of having something unexpected.

YA: What’s your next destination—dream destination? For me it’s Patagonia.

KJ: The place that I’d like to go most in the world that I haven’t been to is Papua New Guinea. I also want to go to Alaska for the wolves and nature. I’m obsessed with outdoor programs on Alaska. What’s that program? Dropped? They drop people in the middle of Alaska and they have to survive and find their way out of there. Bears come to the camp and eat their food and all these sorts of things.

YA: Have you ever been to Yellowstone?

KJ: I love Yellowstone.

YA: So much. I’m going to go back there. That’s another place I was so emotionally touched by—the environment and everything. Mother Nature is so beautiful. How, even if it goes through the harshest winter and almost everything gets wiped out, spring comes, summer comes, it breathes, it grows up, then it goes through that cycle again. It just makes you really think about life. Sometimes I feel like as a human, I worry about the wrong things.

KJ: I do love that area of the world. I’m getting more into being outside cities, but travel’s difficult because the scheduling is just crazy. We’re doing the Dior summer collection at the moment in London. Then we’re in Rome next week—is it next week? The week after. I go into my storage next week. I haven’t been there for ages. I don’t even know what’s in there. It’s like Japanese magazines, a T-shirt collection. I’m quite excited to see those things. You see some stuff and it makes you think in a new way.

YA: You should do your own book pop-up. You have so many books.

KJ: I know. I’m building a library actually. I’m giving my big collection of first editions to a trust and I’m going to open a sort of library museum for people to see them all. I bought the building and that’s a long-term project. There’s not a time when I’m not working. Same as you. I see you everywhere at the moment. Keeping your energy up can be quite difficult.

YA: But you know what? I want to maximize my time by going and learning and seeing and doing. Honestly, when I say this, I am not lying, but I don’t get jet lag. It’s weird. I don’t get tired because I’m actually having fun. Having fun is so important. There’s a lot of work deadlines. I get that. That’s just what comes with it. But what we get to do, it’s a blessing that we’re able to create and we can put our ideas out there and people like what we do. It’s wonderful.

KJ: We’re so privileged to do what we do and we are so lucky. We have all these amazing opportunities. Taking them and doing them, I’m always thankful for that because you learn on each project. 

I’m just making sure I get time in nature at the moment. That’s my real thing. I find that the most inspiring. It’s time to think and that’s what I really enjoy having.

YA: I do try to squeeze in at least a week of nature every month. So after I go to Milan soon and then Paris, I’m going to go to the Big Island in Hawaii. It has mountains so I can hike. I can enjoy the sun on the black sand. I do, though, need to go out clubbing once in a while. I just love listening to music loud. I need to feel it.

KJ:  I love to see people. I love people-watching. That’s one of my biggest inspirations, sitting somewhere and just watching people go by. I’m terrible to have dinner with because I’m just looking over your shoulder, looking at what someone’s wearing coming in. It’s an obsession.

YA: That comes with what we do because we’re just totally curious people.

KJ: What’s the next big thing you’re going to do?

YA: There are a few things. I’m working on an app that has to do with animals. It’s going to be really fun. I’m also working on something in the beauty space that is tied to nature. I’m excited about that one. I’m working on a watch and a Rizzoli book. I’m excited for this book to come out because if you look at individual products from just one point, they look kind of random, but if you zoom out, everything kind of makes sense.

KJ: When are you in Paris?

YA: I’m heading there in April.

Do you see my cat? She just keeps wanting to jump up. “Hi!” You say “hi” to everyone. I’m going to be there from the 11th. I don’t know if you’re there. I’ll stop by your office.

KJ: Yeah, I think we will go at the end of the month. Jambo, come here. This is Jambo.

YA: I think this is a perfect ending. Oh my god. Say, “hi.” He should be my avatar. 

Shop GREATEST 09 here and discover the issue's other cover stories, including sub, Peso Pluma and Tyshawn Jones.