From Balmain to Ramie: A Fashion Life, Rewoven in Korea
How a London-trained designer left high fashion behind to weave culture, teaching, and tradition into a new kind of garment.
I didn’t meet the designer by accident. In December last year, I drove down to Keimyung University in Daegu to meet Ali Ruth, who teaches fashion design there. That visit became the basis for a story I published — Daegu: A Journey Through Korea’s Layered Identity — but it was the conversation with Ali that lingered longest. Our second meeting came a few months later, at his wife Jin Cho Youn’s exhibition in Seoul. This interview, conducted over email and zoom, picks up where those in-person moments left off.
“I would follow Jin to the moon.”
That’s how Ali Ruth — founder of Professor Shirts and a fashion design professor at Keimyung University — describes his decision to move to Korea. It wasn’t part of a grand plan. He had already landed a teaching position at the London College of Fashion, but something else was pulling stronger: love, curiosity, and a quiet kind of faith.
Born in Austria, Ali left home early, moving to London at 19 and working under a fashion designer who encouraged him to apply to Central Saint Martins. He was rejected twice — he had no formal art education — but persistence, and the relationships he formed, eventually opened the door. He would go on to study under Howard Tangye, a legendary figure in the school’s fashion program. Tangye’s influence would prove foundational — not only by helping Ali land a coveted role at Balmain in Paris, but by planting the seed for what would later become a lifelong calling: teaching.
Ali’s journey through the fashion world has never been a straight line. After his time in Paris, he found himself disillusioned with the high-fashion system. “I wanted something more, something deeper,” he says. That led him into costume design for performance — a field that fused storytelling with design, and which has continued to shape the way he thinks about both clothing and pedagogy. “Any good brand starts with research,” he notes. “And storytelling is vital for a brand. Especially when the garments carry this much cultural weight.”
The brand in question is Professor Shirts — though “brand” might not be the right word. It began as a research project, a way of reconnecting with fashion on Ali’s own terms after years of academic life and installation work. He describes it as a hunger: not to return to the fast-paced cycles of high fashion, but to rediscover the tactile and cultural depth of making clothes again.
At the heart of the project are ramie (모시) and hemp (삼베) shirts — garments often associated with older Korean men, but reinterpreted here with a different eye. “There was a purist quality to them that fascinated me,” Ali says. “Clean, crisp, geometric. Form follows function — and therefore becomes beautiful.” He was drawn not only to the design, but to the wearers themselves: men whose age and confidence gave the garments a quiet authority. “That, for me, was Korean cool.”
He wears what he makes — not as performance, but as practice.
Ali favors unparched hemp shirts, worn daily, with measured consistency. There’s nothing ornamental about them — no flash, no branding. Just clean lines, natural material, and a form that reflects use. “I really like to wear them,” he says. “There’s an effortless elegance in them — and a certain superiority, in the best sense — that comes with age and confidence.”
But Professor Shirts is not an exercise in retro aesthetics. It’s an ongoing dialogue — between material and memory, between Korean tradition and contemporary design, between the outsider’s perspective and the insider’s nuance. The brand is built on storytelling as a method, often in collaboration with others. One of Ali’s key creative partners is poet Jake Levine, whose texts accompany and expand the garments into something more discursive and layered. “It’s about creating culture, not appropriating it,” Ali says. “The stories, the collaborations — they build a context around the shirt. They turn it into a question, not just an object.” Working with Jake has expanded both the emotional and visual vocabulary of Professor Shirts — opening creative pathways that wouldn’t exist in isolation. “Collaboration and the stories that derive from it create meaning beyond the product,” Ali says. “They create culture around it.”
He works closely with artisans in Korea and across East Asia, traveling to meet weavers, studying their processes, and learning from the material itself. Sometimes, he says, all it takes is a small intervention — a cut, a styling decision, a shift in presentation — to reframe how we see heritage fabrics. And sometimes, the goal is to not intervene: to let the texture speak.
In that sense, Professor Shirts is more than a brand. It’s an ongoing case study in how materials carry culture — and how garments can be tools for reflection, not just expression.
Ali is acutely aware of the sensitivities involved in working with heritage materials as a non-Korean designer. He has no nostalgia for these garments, no childhood memories of a grandfather in a white ramie shirt. But he sees that distance as both a limitation and a creative opening. “All I have is an appreciation for design, a love of the material, an interest in the people who wear and make them.” Without the emotional baggage of memory, he designs with curiosity instead of reverence — creating new stories rather than echoing old ones.
“Collaboration and the stories that derive from it create meaning beyond the product,” Ali says. “They create culture around it. It’s about creating culture rather than appropriating it.” Working with Jake has expanded both the emotional and visual vocabulary of Professor Shirts — opening creative pathways that wouldn’t exist in isolation.
His respect for Korean craftsmanship is visible in his collaborations. Whether working with weavers in Andong or learning from the materials of neighboring countries, he’s drawn to purity of form and authenticity of process. “I once visited a traditional hemp weaver in Andong,” he recalls. “The base weaves were beautiful. But as soon as someone tried to turn them into fashion pieces — accessories or golf wear — the magic disappeared.” He nodded politely, but inwardly thought: 아쉽다. That lingering disappointment — at how easily something meaningful can be aestheticized without understanding — continues to fuel his approach. “I hope we can contribute to the dialogue around how to develop this amazing heritage,” he says.
Ali has also learned from unexpected sources — like Korean artisans’ skepticism of Chinese materials. “There’s a cultural bias, but also a lack of awareness,” he says. “Chinese manufacturers have invested heavily in education and development, and Korea would benefit from doing the same. The raw material here is extraordinary — but it needs care, support, and thoughtful evolution.”
And what about his own style? The shirts he designs — crisp, composed, architectural — reflect something of himself. “Quiet confidence is very much on brand,” he says. “It’s the same quality I saw in the original wearers. Understated but certain. Proud of the material, proud of the history — without having to say much.” Does he see himself in the garments? “Maybe in the love of material,” he replies. “And in the cultural dialogue they might create.”
Today, Ali and his wife, artist Jin Cho Youn, live and work in Daegu, where he teaches at Keimyung University and builds Professor Shirts between lectures, office hours, and peaceful evenings. “Daegu wasn’t part of the plan,” he admits. “But it’s been kind to us.” While he sometimes misses the cultural stimulation of Seoul, London, or Paris, he values the space, the time, and the freedom that Daegu allows. “We live a rather unrestricted life here,” he says. “And I believe I’m still the only non-Korean academic in my field in Korea.”
His classroom, like his design studio, is filled with energy and experimentation. “My collaborators, models, photographers — they’re mostly colleagues and students,” he explains. “In its best form, university should be a creative community.” He recalls one moment when a student visited a Chanel store to try on a 15-million-won jacket as part of a research exercise. When he asked how she felt, she said: If it had been 1.5 million won, I would’ve been scared. But at 15 million? It felt so unreal that it became fun. “That,” Ali says, “was a beautiful moment. One that only experience can give.”
Teaching, for Ali, is deeply intertwined with life. He believes in experiential knowledge — going, seeing, touching, trying — and encourages his students to think and speak critically about the world around them. “Especially now, as our dependency on AI grows, we need to hold onto what it means to feel and observe,” he says. He recently came across a quote that’s stayed with him: “Instead of teaching how to look at art, we should teach how to look at life — through art.”
He couldn’t agree more.
He’s also an astute observer of the Korean fashion landscape — not just as a designer, but as an educator. “I hear some pretty damning accounts from my students about what it’s like working for younger Korean brands,” he says. “It’s why work ethics and design ethics matter so much.” He also notes a lack of narrative in much of the industry — branding without storytelling, style without substance. But he’s not without hope. He celebrates spaces like Textum Club, a small but vital initiative run by Kim Yeonwoo, Kim Seohee, and Hwang Hyerim. “They’re bridging the gap between theory and practice,” he says. “And they’re doing it with intelligence, taste, and care. It’s exactly what the field needs.”
So what is Korean Cool, according to Ali Ruth?
“It starts with form following function. Gets perfected by routine. And doesn’t take itself too seriously.” For him, Korean Cool lives in the in-between spaces — where social status momentarily recedes and community shines through; where effort and effortlessness dance with one another. Not in idol concerts or curated tea ceremonies — but in something more democratic, less polished, and more alive. “It’s the joy of something working well and evolving over time without the pressure of perfection,” he says, “yet with pride and ingenuity. Enjoyable by all.”
These days, joy comes in small moments. In his students’ boldness. In the quiet strength of a handwoven shirt. In the creative partnership he shares with Jin. In building something slow, thoughtful, and rooted.
“When my students like what they do,” he says, “and therefore become fearless — that’s when I feel joy.”
