Benjamin Cho: "I Want to Experiment With Something Different After This Season."

Benjamin Cho's collection, though small, was gorgeous. Everything was perfectly constructed, a little offbeat without being off-the-wall, and completely beautiful. The models jingled as they strutted the catwalk because many of the dresses were ornamented with rows and rows of keys. And as Julia Frakes said to me after the show, "It was very Ben." That is because it is his ten-year anniversary and he wanted to go back to what makes Ben Cho, Ben Cho. The designer darling was gracious enough to chat with me post-show.

I absolutely loved this collection!
Oh you did! Oh good!

So tell me, was this an easy collection to birth or did you have any stumbling blocks with it?
Well, this is actually my ten year anniversary show, which is really weird, so I decided to do everything by myself this season and with that comes the pressure of getting everything together -- you know, when things come in, getting things made, getting everything together, so it doesn't always come together the way I hoped it would. Doing that DIY again, it was kind of a weird experience. Next season I am going try something different, so this is the last time I will spend so much time with the clothing, which I kind of don't want to do anymore. I just want to experiment with something different after this season.

Oooh, experimentation! What kind of experiments are we talking about here?
A different kind of structure. I don't want to have so much handiwork. I think that the aesthetic of it, I maybe don't like anymore. I want to have a little more subtlety, because I know when I put my hand to it is going to look very "couture-y." You know, it's a braided peacock, I can't help that kind of shit, you know what I mean? I want to kind of abandon it a little bit, to see what I can do otherwise, because I know I am good at that kind of thing, that kind of thing I can do with my eyes closed. So I want to kind of explore other ideas.

And the keys, tell me all about the keys.
They were illegal! It was impossible for us to get them, and we got most of them today, and there were supposed to be way more but we couldn't get that many.

What was illegal about keys?
They don't sell blank keys to anybody, so we had to take them from people, we had to call everyone, it was impossible. It was such a headache!

So, what were you doing before the show and what are you going to do after?
I might commit suicide tonight, and before I was contemplating it! [laughs]

Don't do it, don't do it!
No, I'm really looking forward to next season. It was fun revisiting these old sort of things and also I have been seeing a lot lines like Kiki de Montparnasse copying exact replicas of my clothing and I want to show her how it's done. You want to make a braided peacock I'll give you a fucking braided peacock!

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