YK is a trademark name for Comfy USA and registered by a Joyce J Choo. It`s a bit like a very large company bringing out a range under another name, a made up example might be the likes of Adidas bringing out a special range aimed at women and calling it the Sophia or Elsa or Florence brand. I have no doubt that Yong Kim doesn`t actually exist though some people confuse her with a Young Kim who is a tacher at a design college in a different state. The following document is interesting and someone asked DF on the BTY thread does YK exist and her answer was something twee along the lines of oh yes, she`s a lovely little asian lady lol.
Smoke and mirrors IMO. Read the link below if you don`t believe me.
http://www.trademarkia.com/yong-kim-85804795.html
Vienna, my understanding from reading tradmarkia, which I did last year, is that Joyce J Cho is the lawyer handling the filing of the registration of the various trademarks; in consequence, Cho is referred to as the correspondent. Unlike an owner, a correspondent has to be a person and not an abstract entity such as an LLC.
Re the existence or otherwise of Yong Kim, I reprint my response to thatu's posting of 19/9/2014 - page 4 of the thread
'Yong Kim TSV 19/9/2014'. For completeness, I have included thatu's posting.
On balance, I believe that Yong Kim does exist; that she set up the company with her husband; and that, at least in the early years she designed or contributed to the designs. Although I like, and wear, some of her clothes, I do consider the majority of her garments to be overpriced: I rarely pay the full price should I be taken with something.
thatu wrote:
I don't believe there is a person called Yong Kim. If there was, we'd have seen a photo of him/her before now and it's not like designers to be reserved about advertising their creations. I think it's a company who's decided that they need to create a brand based on the fact that many working women haven't time or inclination to iron and the thinking seems to have been that any old floaty, crinkled material will be okay because it will only fit where it touches and they (the customers) can layer it up anyway. YK clothes don't look good on the models, they look awful on the "brand ambassador", Ingrid, and to be honest I wouldn't give this sort of look wardrobe space, even if I could screw them up and stuff them in the bottom of a drawer. As for pricing, well, they reckon the non-iron brigade are making megabucks so they will get those silly prices for their stuff.
Emperor's clothes springs to mind. If you tell the public for long enough that something's trendy and fashionable, some will buy it.
Waiting now for screams of horror from the YK fashionistas.
Minnehaha wrote:
As I noted in an earlier post – sometime in June- there is a small clothing company in the USA called Comfy USA Apparel Inc in Sylmar, LA, California. In the UK, the clothing range is sold under the name of Yong Kim.
The president of the company is one Richard Kim and his VP is one Yong Kim. A couple in their mid- 50s called Richard and Yong Kim are listed elsewhere as residing in an upmarket area of LA. Notwithstanding the fact that Kim is one of the most common Korean family names, the information dovetails with that provided by Ingrid. Given the latter’s ignorance and lack of interest in basic research, I doubt whether she would have spent time using Dun & Bradstreet and other company reports to ‘create’ a QVC ‘Yong Kim’ persona from a ‘real’ person. Freddie Forsyth she ain’t.
YK-type tunics/ dresses and skirts – Phase 8, Ronen Chen, Wall and Bazaar come to mind – have been sold in London and elsewhere for years. In my experience, some people look very good in them: others less so, because they wear the wrong size and/or appear to lack confidence or flare.
I disagree with your statement that YK clothes ‘don’t look good on the models’. I would have agreed were you to have said that some of the YK clothes don’t look good on some of the models. The ‘young outsize’ models appear to be following Joy in that they frequently size down, which is not a good look.
Similarly, I disagree that YK clothes look awful on Ingrid. I concede that she can - and does - look like a bag lady on many occasions. However, in my opinion, she can – and does – look good on other occasions.
From my reading of forum posts and reviews posted on the web, I would be most surprised to find many YK- wearers ‘screaming’ after reading your post: their response would most likely be ‘whatever.’
Jay
