The Sign of, by and for Women

Underwear shops are the core of the market that emphasizes not only the products but also the store itself. The underwear shop, located in Myung Dong, the busiest street in Seoul, was entirely decorated to depict sexy and passionate scene by utilizing sculptures, unlike other existing underwear shops.

Targeting Women in Their 20’s
The Ssang Bang Wul (meaning double bells in Korean) company changed its name that it had held on to for 43 years. They’ve started a new business with a new name, TryBrand, since May 8th, 2006. One of its branches, “THE bu”, targeting women in their 20’s with cosmetics and lingerie, is also located in Myung Dong, Seoul.
The front of the shop is primarily constructed with glass so its underwear items can be seen through on the first and second levels, and over the third floor is constructed with translucent one-way glass which prevents passerby from seeing inside the shop. The building began to be under construction since April last year, and it is particularly outstanding since the building consists of six stories providing customers with an opportunity of shopping both cosmetics and underwear at one time. It is the shop’s base concept
The sign was created with unique design to match well with the concept of the shops, making it different from the atmosphere of ordinary underwear stores. To express the space as a civilized space for women in their 20’s, the space was created to be similar to nightclubs. In this matter, mesh wire-nets were used in construction to protect glasses from being damaged, represent the concept of boldness and pattern the American style.
Produced with a laser engraving machine, the five sculptures demonstrate enthusiasm and sexiness of liberal women. The American top model graphics were printed with a large format digital printer. They were installed on the side of from three to six stories.

Proper Welding Required for Best result
Luminous acrylics with 60mm of depth were applied on the columns and the building facade. After the three pieces of acrylics in 455mm by 1580mm were applied, reinforcement glass was attached on it, and digital graphics that were gradated in pink and purple, were glued to it. The digital graphics in pink were attached after applying the reinforcement glass on the facade of the building after coupling the three pieces of acrylics in 2,017mm by 1,000mm.
The five sculptures, which can be regarded as “the flower” of this project, were created with a laser engraving machine, Trump L3030s. After engraving the 2mm thick stainless steel plates for front and back sides of the sculptures separately, 15 pieces of the 380mm thick stainless steel grinders were joined.
The reason why argon welding was not utilized was to prevent the iron plates from transforming and blacking dirt. However, argon welding is not harmful to apply on 5mm thick or thicker stainless plates.
As a source of interior light, EEFL was used on the contour of the front side of the sculptures that are 180 centimeters tall. Since illuminating on stainless steel plates was impossible, lights were mounted on the vacancy on the sides for indirect illumination effect.
The most complicated procedure for five sculptures was to secure them to the building, so there were three ways applied to fix them to building. Firstly, iron plates with screws were fastened on the floor and they were welded to each bottom of sculptures. Secondly, the steel plates were attached to the back side of sculptures by argon welding using square steel pipes. Lastly, after connecting the stainless steel in 30mm diameter with the mannequins, we welded another stainless steel wand perpendicularly, attached it, and fixated it on the exterior of the building. For this procedure, electronic welding was used.