Jeremy Scott On Leaving Moschino And His New Hyundai Collection

Jeremy Scott recently announced he is stepping down from Moschino after a decade of being the Italian brand’s creative director.

“It feels great, I’m so proud of the legacy I’ve just left,” Scott tells me in an interview. “I think I created a Cinderella story—even Sleeping Beauty, I kissed her and woke her up. I’m leaving it in a wonderful place. Every great book has many chapters, and you must close one chapter to start the new one. I’m happy to start my next chapter.”

Scott joined Moschino in 2013, showcasing his first collection for the brand in fall 2014. He created pop culture-infused collections that played with fast food logos, Barbie prints and bombastic pieces, like a chandelier dress worn by Katy Perry at the 2019 Met Gala. He is known for redefining the meaning of camp, and creating a postmodern, cartoon aesthetic that speaks to the TikTok generation.

Right now, the designer is in Seoul launching a new couture collection with Hyundai Car Company. Scott has taken discarded, old Hyundai car parts from junkyards and upcycled the items into 10 stylish looks. The exhibition is on view at AP Again in Seoul from March 23 to April 9, and is an impressive, creative way to incorporate windshield wipers, seatbelts, hubcaps and more into high fashion.

Typically, when we see car companies collaborate with fashion designers, we usually see something cheesy, like a car parked outside of a runway show. But here, it’s an actual collaboration between the artist and the car parts.

“I think sustainability is important and that’s what I love about what they’re already doing,” said Scott.

Re:Style is an upcycling collection founded by Hyundai in 2019. This arm of the car brand partners with fashion designers who upcycle materials using discarded car parts from Hyundai cars. The brand aims to be carbon neutral by 2045 and sustainable fashion is one way to show how the company is “designing for the future.”

Scott used car parts from Hyundai cars in five junkyards surrounding Seoul, upcycled from cars from the 1980s and 1990s. We might know Scott as a purveyor of pop culture, but he grew up with a low-waste strategy he learned from his grandmother. “Where I grew up, I had to reuse everything,” he said. “I would reuse a glass bottle into a vase or a planter, watching my grandmother constantly take things like plastic bags and weaving them into a jump rope or a rug, it was always something that became something else. She was doing upcycling before it was a trend. Now it’s how my brain works.”

It’s part of the reason Hyundai chose to collaborate with Scott. “The automobile and fashion industries are among the major contributors to environmental pollution,” said Sungwon Jee, the global chief marketing officer at Hyundai Motor Company. “Jeremy Scott is a renowned designer who transforms ordinary materials into witty designs to create amazing outfits that we could have never imagined. This fashion collection is in line with the company’s commitment to sustainability.”

To Scott, he calls it “car-ture,” a kind of car couture. “This idea of doing something around a car, I was immediately inspired by using car parts,” he said. “I wanted to make decadent evening wear, like conceptual ideas around a car seat becoming a full gown, and rearview mirrors becoming sculptural evening gowns.”

He’s most proud of the dress made from windshield wipers. “Taking the windshield wipers of Hyundai cars and turning it into a 1950s Parisian-style dress, something that’s almost cyberpunk mixed with a classic Givenchy couture, was fun,” said Scott.

“I used car handles, seatbelts and windshield wipers and hubcaps because I wanted to take it one step further,” he adds.

The dress made from rearview mirrors is a chain-linked dress of Hyundai mirrors. Up close, we can read the safety warning caption on each mirror: “objects in mirror are closer than they appear,” and another vamp-like dress uses red brake lights into a devilish black dress. Overall, they’re an impressive take on upcycling in a way that still honors the item’s original use, rather than just grinding them down into recycled fabric.

Next up, Scott is working on the Met Gala. “It’s the next thing I have to solely focus on,” he said.

The annual Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute gala honors German fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld, who passed away in 2019 at the age of 85. “Karl was very close to me and I was so lucky to have been his protégé, someone he took under his wing and was so generous with sharing his knowledge and passion,” said Scott. “He was so supportive of me in such an early stage in my career. Its moments I cherish in my heart forever, in a little treasure chest. I’m excited to honor him.”