1. "Who Is Mark Gong?"

This was the question we heard most often in the meeting room in the early days of the project. It was less simple curiosity than a question like, 'Why does our brand need this unfamiliar name, right now?' In fact, this collaboration was not a project to team up with a new designer brand. It began with a deliberation over how to further solidify HERA's leading image as a makeup brand, and to tell the story of the S/S season in a way different from other brands. In other words, beyond a simple design collaboration, we wanted to find a partner who could also capture the brand's philosophy and attitude.

While reviewing rising brands in the global fashion market, we noticed that Mark Gong's 'Gong Girl' persona and the 'Seoulista' persona pursued by the contemporary Seoul beauty brand HERA were closely aligned. The image of a woman building her own beauty with a free, self-directed attitude, along with the philosophy of always proposing new styles rather than staying fixed to past standards, also resembled the image of the 'elegant rebel' that HERA wanted to convey.

Familiarity is stable, and it lowers the odds of failure. But the force that moves a brand forward is usually forged in unfamiliar attempts. Collaboration is not merely a matter of placing two logos side by side. It's a process in which two different worldviews interlock, allowing each side's own essence to come into sharper focus. A brand's vitality and depth, the very thing product function alone can never fill, is what we call 'our own narrative,' and it is completed only when it meets an unfamiliar world like this one.

2. Beyond the Product: Existing as 'A Single Scene'

The 26 S/S Shanghai Fashion Week was where we felt the meaning of this project most vividly. It was more than a place to showcase a product; it was like a stage on which we experienced how HERA could connect within the currents of global fashion and culture.

The scene before the curtain rose was not as glamorous as the runway itself. Backstage was a rough, restless space, a mix of hustle and tension that never let up. Even as models ran through rehearsals and the hair and makeup teams moved at full speed, we had to keep aligning our opinions.

What proved hardest of all was finding the balance between two different points of view. The identity HERA wanted to convey through this collaboration was clear, but we also had to respect our partner's originality and the flow of the fashion show itself. How to make the brand's presence felt, and where to step in versus where to take a step back: these questions demanded far more coordination than we'd expected. What mattered most was thoroughly capturing the brand's intent without compromising our partner's aesthetic, and finding the point of contact where each side's strengths could connect naturally.

In the end, the scenes we encountered on the runway made every bit of that intense process feel worthwhile. Our products went beyond makeup applied to skin; they met the designer's fashion and completed a single mood, bringing the free, sensual attitude the collection was meant to convey into sharper relief. And that scene became an original narrative that only HERA, among countless brands, could claim as its own.

3. What Kind of Brand Will Endure?

A brand is not completed by its products alone. It's remembered through the distinct sensibility and story it accumulates over time, and through the traces of countless choices. And a BM is the person who thinks hard about the direction in which to build those choices. Brands that remain irreplaceable over time each carry their own multi-layered character. There is a mood and an attitude that product function or performance alone can never explain — a brand's own unique 'worldview.'

And that kind of layer is built not in the most stable, efficient moments of choice, but in the time spent willingly connecting with unfamiliar worlds and exploring new possibilities. By occasionally stepping outside familiar methods and collaborating in unexpected territory, a brand grows, little by little, into something more multidimensional.

Numbers get renewed every season, but the trajectory of choices a brand has built over time does not disappear. What values it held important, what scenes it was part of, what path of challenge it chose: in the end, these become the brand's own asset and its own story. That's why we must keep pushing our boundaries outward and keep attempting new connections. Not to be a brand that merely creates a passing trend, but to become one that stays long in people's memory, even as time passes.