Boktae and Hangun, the married duo behind the band Sun-gwa-young, have picked up needles and thread instead of instruments and microphones to open the Deadly Sewing Club. ‘Light is heard/wind is seen/darkness is heard/I walked without a thought (from Sun-gwa-young’s song ‘I Just Walked’)’ Just like the narration in their song, the two simply kept walking through light, wind, and darkness until they arrived at the world of sewing. Rhythmically moving a needle threaded with Chiang Mai hemp thread has become, for them, another form of music.
Interviewer Parc Jinmyoung
Interviewee Boktae and Hangun (Operators of Deadly Sewing Club)
Photos Son Dongjoo
What does your day-to-day life look like these days?
Hangun We hold workshops three to four times a week, and spend the rest of our time preparing for exhibitions and a book (at the time of the interview, they were about to publish ‘Deadly Sewing Club: Please, Somehow, Bring It Back to Life’).
Do you have a separate music studio?
Hangun This past March, for the first time in the 14 years we’ve been together, we set up a studio. Before that, we worked on our albums at home (recording aside) and held sewing workshops at home too. Now that we have a studio, the workshops seem to be going even better, and we’ve been getting exhibition offers and doing shoots like this interview.
You spend so much time together — don’t you ever fight?
Hangun Up until our eighth year together, we fought constantly.
Boktae We fought so much that there’s nothing left to fight about now (laughs).
You two met while forming the band ‘Boktae and Hangun,’ right?
Boktae We first met at a friend’s birthday party in 2010. Hangun, who was 20 at the time, had just moved to Seoul from Jeonju, Jeollabuk-do, and was a guitarist. After hearing him play, I suggested we start a band together. But then we ended up falling in love just as hard as we fell into music (laughs).
You’re doing sewing together too, I see.
Boktae During a family trip to Chiang Mai, Thailand in 2016, I became fascinated with Chiang Mai–style clothes-making and got seriously into sewing. At the time, we were raising a child while making a living through music lessons and performances. Whenever I gave music lessons, Hangun would support me by creating visual materials, and when I started teaching sewing, he helped with poster design and gathering materials. We work well together as partners.
Hangun I think we do things together, whether it’s music or sewing, because we share similar values and philosophies. We’ve become a relationship where we fill in each other’s gaps and grow together. Though we fought a huge amount to get here (laughs). I don’t think anything is perfect from the start — you need a process of adjusting to how each person has lived.
Can you describe the moment you became fascinated with Chiang Mai–style clothes-making in more detail?
Boktae I was walking out after stopping by Paper Spoon, a concept store and café in the Chiang Mai artist village of Baankangwat. On the street, I saw a man sewing and, in broken English, just went up and asked him, “How do you do that? I want to learn too.” That’s how I first met EAK, my sewing teacher and friend.
Hangun After we came back to Korea, while Boktae diligently honed her sewing skills, I focused on raising our child. In 2019, we went back to Chiang Mai, and when I saw the colorful embroidery on EAK’s jacket, I immediately asked him to teach me. Unlike Boktae, who has a talent for creating new things, I enjoy decorating and rearranging, so it turned out to be a perfect fit for me. Right after we learned embroidery and came home, COVID hit and the performing arts scene ground to a complete halt. We took that opportunity to sit down together and really sharpen our sewing skills. We started teaching sewing classes too, uploading our videos to an online lecture platform.
So it all flowed naturally.
Hangun It feels like a new mission appears every time we move into the next chapter of life. Just as EAK showed us a different world through sewing, the recent exhibition ‘Needle Dance Time’ at Gallery Awon was the same kind of turning point — it was the first time Boktae’s handmade clothes were sold.
Boktae Preparing for this exhibition, my sewing improved noticeably. Looking back, I feel like everything since 2010 has flowed naturally, following the direction the wind blew. In 2022, with the income from our sewing classes, we released our first full-length album (‘Night and Day,’ the first full album released after we changed our name from Boktae and Hangun to Sun-gwa-young). We’d started performing in 2010, so it was our first album after twelve years. Hangun I’ve always thought that you should be able to take care of at least one of the basics — food, clothing, or shelter — on your own. Since I consider self-sufficiency an important value in life, I think that’s naturally what drew me to sewing.
What’s the appeal of Chiang Mai–style clothes-making?
Boktae What I learned from EAK was how to make the traditional clothing of the Karen people, one of the ethnic minority groups in Chiang Mai. ‘Chiang Mai–style clothes-making’ and ‘Chiang Mai–style hand sewing’ are terms we came up with ourselves. You make everyday clothes using fabric that allows for easy movement, and the cutting method is incredibly simple. There’s no tape measure, no pattern, not even a single basting stitch — you just lay the fabric against your body and cut it right there. You can easily make any kind of garment — T-shirts, pants, jackets — to the point where you’d wonder, “Can this really become clothing?”
Hangun The sewing techniques are unique too. They vary by ethnic group, but generally, fabric is stitched together with naturally dyed Chiang Mai hemp thread to make clothes or small items. For the Karen and other minority groups, hand sewing is a means of livelihood — they grow their own cotton, make clothes from it, and sell them at markets. Apparently, the younger generation no longer wants to learn sewing, preferring instead to go to big cities to earn money. EAK, who feels for this reality, goes into their villages whenever he has time to learn sewing from them.
Just like when you boldly asked a stranger in Chiang Mai to teach you sewing, are you someone who tends to dive into new things boldly?
Boktae Am I that kind of person?
Hangun Sometimes she does things that don’t seem like her at all, and those moments often become turning points. She’s actually very introverted by nature, but she seems to have a knack for not missing decisive moments — like when she first spoke to me, or when she asked a stranger of a different nationality and language to teach her something.
What about you, Hangun?
Hangun I’m really someone who’s never lived by making plans. I’ve always believed that if you do the task in front of you well, it naturally leads to the next one. Of course, there are pros and cons to that, but thanks to Boktae filling in what I lack, I feel like this approach of mine has ended up shining in a good way. I think of Boktae as the needle that pierces through anything, and myself as the thread that weaves things together in its wake.
Boktae Oh, that’s a nice way to put it — I should’ve put that in the book… I only just thought of it now.
Tell us the story behind the name ‘Deadly Sewing Club.’
Hangun As I mentioned, once COVID made it hard to make a living through music, we started holding sewing workshops. One day, one of our students, completely absorbed in sewing, said, “This is totally deadly. It’s like a deadly sewing club,” and we felt that phrase perfectly matched our sensibility. With her permission, we started calling it the ‘Deadly Sewing Club’ from then on.
Boktae It also carries the meaning of having a charm so irresistible you could sew yourself to death and still not be able to escape it. In English, we call it the Deadly Sewing Club, and just like the other meaning packed into the word ‘deadly,’ it’s also a ‘lethal sewing club’ in that sense. There’s a quiet intensity to sewing. The atmosphere while sewing is calm and peaceful, but you can see people cheering inside. Hangun In Buddhism, death doesn’t mean the extinction of the body, but the disappearance of the mind’s restlessness and afflictions. In that sense, I think the name Deadly Sewing Club carries even more weight.
I heard offline workshops really took off starting in 2022.
Boktae There’s been a lot more interest in the climate crisis lately. We’ve been getting a lot of requests from zero-waste shops and environmental organizations for classes.
Hangun This past January, I posted a short video of myself mending a sofa on my personal social media account. I don’t know what the algorithm did, but it went viral worldwide. My follower count grew by 40,000 in just three months. I was in Chiang Mai at the time, and when I got back to Korea, requests for classes and exhibitions were pouring in. The book we’d been working on for three or four years also came together around the same time. None of this timing was planned or intended on our part. I think as we kept building our own lifestyle in our own way, people started to find it interesting and wanted to join in and enjoy it with us.
How did the idea of mending plastic bags with a needle and thread come about?
Hangun I’ve sewn just about every material a needle can pierce, starting with socks and moving on to clothes, bags, shoes, leather, shearling, you name it. The final boss was an umbrella. Once I’d tried my hand at almost every material, I asked Boktae, “Isn’t there something new?”
Boktae That’s when I brought up plastic bags. Hangun I’m usually the one in charge of sorting recycling at home. No matter how consciously we try to consume, with a big family (Boktae and Hangun, along with their three daughters Jieum, Ieum, and Boeum, and their dog Yeoreum) we end up generating a lot of trash. Every time I sorted the recycling, I felt a pang of guilt, but once Boktae said that, plastic bags started to look different to me. It seemed like everyone had forgotten how much plastic bags had enriched our lives. We treat them like a nuisance. But they’re transparent, they shimmer, they don’t decompose, and when you sew them, you can see both the front and back of the stitches. It struck me that plastic has an aesthetic value that never fades away. We rediscovered the beauty of plastic as a material. Earlier this year, in Chiang Mai, I posted a video of myself sewing a plastic bag on social media. In no time, it racked up over a million views.
These days, people are so focused on efficiency and productivity when it comes to investing time in something. It seems wonderful that you can just dive in without measuring anything.
Boktae I think my concept of efficiency is a bit different from other people’s. I also really dislike wasting time. I believe that spending time on what I actually want to do is what makes it efficient and productive. Sewing not only fulfills me personally, but it also lets me make clothes for my kids. Just like I started making music to give people comfort, I started holding workshops because I wanted to share the sense of fullness that sewing gives me.
Hangun If something brings me joy right now, I think that in itself makes it worthwhile. I kept a needle stuck in the traditional Palong jacket Boktae made for me, and I’d sew whenever I had a spare moment. I didn’t care whether it would make money or not — I just felt joy and delight imagining the images I could draw with thread and needle. I think that alone makes for a sufficiently efficient life.
Does the ‘Chiang Mai spirit’ that the Deadly Sewing Club emphasizes come from a similar place?
Hangun I was inspired while learning Chiang Mai–style sewing from EAK. Even when my stitches were clumsy and awkward, EAK would always say, “It’s fine, it’s handmade. It’s your own style. You’re the one who’s going to wear it, so what’s there to worry about?” For instance, if I couldn’t get an X-stitch right, he’d say, “There’s no right answer. That’s your stitch.” So what if you stumble a bit? There’s learning in that process.
Boktae If you apply too much force while sewing, the fabric puckers, and if you use too little, the stitches get loose. You can only find that right amount of tension by fully immersing yourself in the moment. Focusing on the ‘here and now’ is what matters. Hangun He also doesn’t obsess over details. As long as it doesn’t look strange overall, that’s fine. The Chiang Mai spirit is believing that giving your best in the moment is enough.
You’re also planning a travel product themed around a Chiang Mai sewing trip.
Boktae We first started it in January 2020. My very first job was at a fair-travel agency, so planning a travel product wasn’t difficult thanks to that experience. The program excludes flights and lodging and focuses solely on sewing workshops held locally. We split the profits fairly with EAK, who leads the sewing classes, and we ask participants not to haggle over prices when buying goods from ethnic minority communities.
Hangun We first gather at the market, and without even introducing ourselves or exchanging greetings, we go straight to buying thread and fabric. Then we move to Enough for Life, where the workshop is held, and start sewing together with EAK. Sometimes EAK recommends a festival that only locals know about, and we go together and spend time there. Over the course of three days, sewing becomes the medium through which participants naturally build relationships with each other. Boktae Next year, we’re planning a trip to meet ethnic minority communities. A lot of people have said they’d like to meet these communities in person and buy fabric or handicrafts directly from them.
I’m curious what kind of people usually take part in the workshops or trips.
Boktae We haven’t had a single complaint since we opened. I think that’s because the people who join tend to share a lifestyle similar to ours — people who understand the value of handcraft and want to practice self-sufficiency.
Does sewing have any influence on your music?
Hangun Since I use my hands so much while sewing, I end up working muscles that are usually stiff. Especially when sewing delicate materials, you really have to control the amount of force you use. Thanks to that, I feel like I’ve gained the strength to touch even the subtlest nuances when playing guitar.
Boktae I think being a musician has actually helped me become better at sewing, too. Sewing requires a sense of rhythm. This is especially true for Hangun’s sewing work, since his hands move improvisationally without any sketch beforehand, so rhythm is really important. Watching him work, I sometimes think sewing feels like a song. In the end, I think sewing and music are deeply connected.
Hangun I think the charm of our work lies in the fact that it feels more musical than craft-like.
You used to perform under the band name Boktae and Hangun before changing it to Sun and Young. What was the reason?
Boktae Actually, Boktae and Hangun was just a placeholder name. Right after we got married, we moved to the countryside in Jinan County, Jeollabuk-do, and appeared on the TV show ‘Human Theater’. Because of that broadcast, our band came to be seen as having a nature-friendly image. Even in our performances, we ended up only singing upbeat songs. But there are clearly darker sides within us too, like sadness and depression. When we released our first full-length album, we wanted to break away from that ‘organic band’ image.
Hangun We took Boktae’s real name, ‘Seonyeong,’ and inserted ‘gwa (and)’ into it. The emphasis of our band name is on that ‘and.’ In English, it’s ‘Line and Circle.’ We wanted to convey the idea that although our lives seem to move in one direction like a straight line, they ultimately circle back around. Boktae Our first album, titled ‘Night and Day,’ carries the same meaning. Just as day follows night, joy follows sorrow, and pain comes with joy — it’s an album that reflects on that idea with a contemplative eye.
What’s next for the Deadly Sewing Club?
Boktae First, to celebrate the release of our first book, I think we’ll be doing book talks and workshops. Starting July 25, for three months, we’ll be taking part in a group exhibition titled ‘Plastic Paradise!?’ at the Aram Art Museum in Goyangaramnuri. I’ll be making clothes out of fabric hand-woven from cotton grown by the Karen people, while Hangun will be exhibiting his plastic bag sewing work. By contrasting cotton, a biodegradable natural fiber, with plastic bags, which never decompose, we hope to create a space that reflects on the blurry boundary between what counts as slow fashion and what counts as fast fashion.
Hangun We’re planning to import Chiang Mai fabrics that are hard to find in Korea and turn it into a proper business. Beyond the fact that Chiang Mai fabrics are unique, we really want to spread awareness of the lives of local ethnic minorities who still weave cloth and make clothes using traditional methods even in the 21st century. The second Chiang Mai Festival will be held from October 5 to 6 at Space Soda 2002 in Mangwon-dong, Seoul. Following last year’s event, this will be the second edition, and this year, various Chiang Mai craftspeople, including EAK, will take part. We’re hoping to create a space where people can view and purchase their work.
What do you think your lives would be like without each other?
Hangun I’d probably have died somewhere far from home (laughs).
Boktae Hangun always says that. That if he hadn’t met me, he’d have died alone in some strange place far from his hometown. As for me, I think I’d have lived a pretty conventional life. If Hangun is someone who breaks the mold, I’m someone who needs a mold to work within. I have plenty of creativity bubbling up inside me, but the boundaries I want to keep are so clear that I have trouble expressing it fully — but with Hangun as a great source of inspiration, I get to plan and create freely. For example, I’m not skilled with instruments, but since Hangun is great at guitar, we’re able to run classes that incorporate instruments.
Hangun I’d probably be back in the countryside helping my parents with their work. Of course, that’s also a valuable and beautiful way to live. Up until my early twenties, I lived purely on instinct. Meeting Boktae taught me how to communicate with the world and helped me discover the senses and talents I had. Boktae is not just my partner, but also my senior and my teacher. If I were alone, I’d probably have other options, but I don’t think I’d be as happy as I am now.
