AACE INTERVIEW: Dae Lim of Sundae School
South Korea passed medical cannabis on November 23, 2018, the first East Asian country to do so.
Dae and Cindy Lim and the Devil’s Lettuce or should we say the Devil’s Napa Cabbage?
I came across Dae Lim of Sundae School in the New York Times’s piece on his 2019 Spring collection. I was immediately thrown into a bevy of love and amazement, the textures, the folding of the materials, the eaze and flow of the movement of the models in the pieces brought to mind the construction of Yohji Yamamoto and the playfulness of Comme Des Garcons meets memes. As I dug deeper in a google search of this designer, I found our mutual link, cannabis; I literally screamed “YES!”. I reached out to Dae, thinking that he is so busy and wouldn’t even have time to reply to me, but he did! Again I jumped up and screamed “YES!”.
Dae and his sister Cindy were born in Seoul, Korea and raised in New York, a combination quite a few of us know, we know the switch from one culture to another and we ride that dual line of identity. A quote from Vogue by Cindy Lim speaks about the bridges they are building between Korean and American cultures “If we can infiltrate the culture, where we can be more understood in Korea like the U.S., that is my dream.”
What is your favorite strain for creativity?
I do not have an all-time favorite, but most recently I've been smoking Durban Poison for weekend day-time design work. I especially enjoy grinding the strain to roll, as it produces a lot of magical green dust. During the week days, I'm usually a midnight toker, and I usually prefer indica hybrid strains to let my mind and body wander off.
If you could create a scent for Sundae School, would one be cannabis based?
Probably not as the base, but as an end note. If I had to choose a base, it'd be pine with a bit of sandalwood, and a hint of Durban Poison
If you could have your own strain, what would you name it?
Young Ggachi (Ggachi means magpie in Korean). It's loud, and soars through the sky.
“Growing up, my mom would always be like, ‘When you’re in America, don’t indulge on the devil’s lettuce,’ ” - Dae Lim
Images © Wesley Sun / NYC / Wesley Sun Photography
Wesley Sun is an Art Center College BFA and SVA MFA fashion and portrait photographer based in NYC