Emerging : PASOM by WAN

On the 25th of April I was able to go to Magasins Généraux for the opening of the 17s exhibition showcasing the end of year projects of IFM MA Image students. While I was there, I was able to discover Pasom, a brand founded by an IFM Image student who I was later able to discuss with.

The founder, Wan, is a 28-year-old Thai student from Bangkok with a fashion design background who works closely with her business partner who is based in Thailand. After completing her fashion design degree in Thailand, Wan started working different jobs (PR assistant, graphic designer…) before later realizing that what she liked most was designing clothes and creating visuals.

During an exchange program in Birmingham, Wan had gotten the chance to come to Paris for a week and that is when she recognized that her personal taste was closely related to Paris whether it was in culture, art or even architecture. Wan then decided to join IFM’s Image program as she thought that what she would learn at IFM would be useful for the development of her goal, that of founding her own brand.

Pasom’s designs and visuals blend Thai heritage and western fashion and when I asked Wan about it, she told me that she got the « blending idea » when she first arrived in France and realized that each culture has its own uniqueness.

She thought that it would be interesting to blend her Thai roots with what she studied (as she studied in a western environment) and thought that it was also a good way to give more representation to non-western cultures in fashion as there were already enough western brands on the market.

Pasom’s clothes are casual, easy to wear, business- ish and multifunctional but are blended with small details that come from Thai culture. As for the image and creative direction, it is inspired by Thai stamps and is very minimalist as it is what Wan is more into.

The idea behind the stamp inspired images of the brand is that of a postcard sent from the future to the past to show the people who receive it how Thai people blend their culture with the environments they’re in and how they live. As for the name chosen for the brand, Pasom is a Thai word that means « to combine, merge or blend together ».

When talking about representation, we came to talk about the choice of models and Wan told me that she originally wanted to only choose Thai and Asian models but then decided that it could also be interesting to get models from the environment the brand was set in as it felt like it would suit the storytelling of the brand better.

I found very interesting the fact that on one of the campaigns we can see a western model in a «Nung Pab Piab» style posture. The thainess of this photo is rooted in the posture as it is a very common posture in Thai culture.

As we were talking about the design choices Wan came to talk about the obstacles that she faced in the development of her brand such as having to make design choices that would please a larger target for marketing and business reasons. While Wan focuses on the design part, her business partner in Thailand focuses on the marketing part and it feels as if between the two fields there is often a need to compromise. Wan talked about how hard it could be for designers to keep their brand’s identity while still trying to make money as they need to create designs that will please the target audience and will sell while still trying to respect their own taste and vision.

You can find Pasom on Instagram, @pasom_official .