Marie Seo is a Korean-American multidisciplinary artist and fashion designer based in New York City. Her practice spans a wide range of media, including garment making, fashion illustration (using oil, ink, and charcoal), drawing/painting, and animation. With a deep appreciation for handcraft, Marie incorporates traditional techniques such as embroidery and hand-sewing into her work, imbuing each piece with much intimacy and care. Through a blend of tactile process and visual storytelling, her work explores themes of adolescence, nostalgia, and girlhood.
The Swan Project
This project investigates the visual language of ballet through form, texture, and construction, focusing on the relationship between grace and control. Drawing from the disciplined elegance of classical performance, the collection interprets movement as something structured rather than fleeting, where softness is carefully engineered. The silhouettes echo the architecture of ballerina attire and traditional corsetry, creating a foundation that gestures toward a romantic, theatrical world without explicitly naming it. Swan Lake serves as the conceptual backbone of this project, drawing from the tension between softness and discipline inherent in classical ballet. Referencing the iconic silhouettes of ballerina costumes and traditional corsetry, the collection explores femininity as something both delicate and constructed—ornamental yet restrained.
The first look centers on a sculptural corset, meticulously hand-embellished with sewn feathers that evoke the swan’s ethereal plumage. Structured through traditional corsetry techniques, the piece is further punctuated by hand-installed grommets, reinforcing the contrast between fragility and strength. The feathers soften the rigid form, creating a surface that feels both protective and performative—echoing the duality of the ballerina as both dancer and athlete.
The second look introduces a tailored counterpoint: a two-piece pinstripe wool set that reinterprets classical menswear through a ballet-informed lens. The asymmetrical jacket features a sharply elongated collar and is secured with firefighter clasps, lending an industrial edge to an otherwise refined silhouette. Paired with a skirt constructed from two separate panels, the garment connects at the waistband through three grommets on each side, laced together with satin ribbon. This exposed method of closure references both corsetry and ballet lacing, allowing structure to become visible rather than concealed.
Together, the looks form a dialogue between tradition and reinterpretation, softness and rigidity, performance and construction—offering a contemporary reflection on ballet’s enduring influence on fashion.
The Pinstripe Set
The following look features a two-piece pinstriped set. The top consists of an asymmetrical standing collar. Moreover, the collar itself features one-inch knife pleats around half of the circumference. Four fireman clasps were chosen for the hardware of this jacket, paired with a cropped fit for a more feminine take on a traditionally masculine hardware and silhouette.
As for the skirt, the waistband was patterned into two pieces to allow the skirt to connect with grommets at the waist. A black satin ribbon was chosen to connect the two-piece skirt. Grommets and the laced-up visual of ribbon through each hardware are highly reminiscent of ballet and the silhouettes associated with it.
The Swan Corset
Lastly, the grommets were inserted by hand with a grommet machine for a total of fifteen grommets on each panel. The grommets were laced with a black satin ribbon to match the grommet skirt and the overall aesthetic of ballet and Swan Lake.