By Kai Ma   Photographs by Eric Sueyoshi

At Parisian Hairs & Wigs in South Los Angeles, rows of doe-eyed mannequins are adorned with faux tresses that range from short coifs to long, wavy manes. One even rocks a perfectly round purple Afro. As Madonna’s “Papa Don’t Preach” plays quietly in the background, Cynthia Park appears, her heavily-penciled brows arched above gold-rimmed glasses.

A devout Jehovah’s Witness prone to peppering her speech with Bible verses, Park, 71, opened her shop near the corner of Crenshaw and Martin Luther King Jr. boulevards in 1968. On this July afternoon, she meanders through her store, exposing a labyrinth of floor-to-ceiling shelves stacked with artificial hair. When asked how many wigs are offered, Park says with a chuckle, “Many.”

Park emigrated from Seoul in 1964, settling first in Los Angeles, then in Torrance, Calif., where she still resides. While working night shifts at a beef jerky factory, she attended the Marinello School of Beauty. Launching her own business as a new immigrant “was hard,” Park says. “But I was young.”

The store, a South Los Angeles fixture, has been used for shooting films, including Training Day (2001), starring Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke. In the scene, a crack dealer played by Snoop Dogg is chased by a narcotics officer-in-training into the store. (Note: The storeowner in the film is an actress, not Park).

Parisian, which sits on a landmark Crenshaw strip, started off as a two-chair salon. For nearly two decades, a prominent sign displayed a side profile of a face with Jheri curls made out of wire spiraling from its skull. Four years ago, it was taken down.

During the 1992 Los Angeles riots, nearby clothing and furniture businesses were torched and looted. Park’s store, however, did not suffer significant damage (though the front windows were destroyed, some merchandise was stolen, and smoke had seeped inside). “We were scared,” says Park. “All my friends helped to clean. And, Jehovah helped me.”

The sewing room. Here, the staff creates custom-made wigs, wiglets, hair tufts and toupees. Park, a beauty school grad, trains each employee how to cut, style and add hair extensions. Her workforce has included up to a dozen staffers but due to the economic downturn, it has recently shrunk to five.

The weaving station. Park developedcher own “pull method” of weaving in extensions, which is offered bycappointment only. Her customers appreciate Park’s natural-looking approach. “They don’t want to look too wig-ish,” she explains. “If too bulky, don’t turn out pretty.”

Hair extensions—made from human hair only—are stockpiled and labeled by color, style and price. They range from straight flyaway locks to tiny ringlets.

All of Park’s products are sent from Asia (mainly Indonesia). The wigs are made from both human and synthetic hair.

Parisian Hairs & Wigs
4102 Crenshaw Blvd., Los Angeles
(323) 296-6450
www.parisianhair.com

Story and photographs by Bill Stephens

When you think Seoul, you envision a bustling capital city, with tall buildings, shopping centers, chain restaurants and car-packed streets. The concrete jungle, in fact, has long had a reputation for being pedestrian-unfriendly. However, in the past 20 years, Seoul appears to be remaking itself, and in substantially greener shades.

A visit to Cheonggyecheon, smack in the middle of Seoul’s central business district, illustrates this point. Three years ago, the city spent about $330 million to liberate the stream (cheon in Korean), which was trapped under a concrete expressway overpass. A typical day now finds city dwellers and visitors strolling alongside the 3.5-mile waterway, lit up at night by rocks with colorful LED lights inside them. Children playfully jump across the stone steps in the water, and fountains, waterfalls, bridges and murals adorn the newly uncovered stream.

After this success story, the push for creating a more “livable,” pedestrian-friendly Seoul has gained momentum, and park supporters couldn’t be more pleased. “A prospering economy and maturing democracy changed people’s consciousness, and the desire for parks and other green areas increased,” explained Seoul National University landscape architecture professor Hwang Keewon.

Cho Sehwan, a landscape architecture professor at Hanyang University, added: “It’s part of the 21st century global urban regeneration trend. The creation of more parks matches citizens’ needs for improved quality of life.”

***

Following the 35-year colonial occupation by Japan and the Korean War, as Seoul began rebuilding its devastated country in the 1960s, some of the parks and green spaces that survived were actually destroyed in favor of unbridled development. However, beautification efforts in preparation for the 1988 Seoul Summer Olympics marked a turning point. And since the 1990s, democratically elected and locally autonomous mayors, such as South Korea’s current President Lee Myung Bak who formerly served as the mayor of Seoul, reportedly realized that the city’s emerging middle class increasingly longed for a more livable town.

Then-Mayor Lee is credited with leading greening efforts, like the building of Seoul Forest and the liberation of Cheonggye Stream. Other notable green schemes included World Cup Park, the Mt. Namsan Park restoration and City Hall’s grassy front lawn.

Choi Yoonjong of the city government’s Green Seoul Bureau says it’s an exciting and busy time, as the city prioritizes building new parks and improving old ones. “By law, we have a new mindset in Korea,” said Choi. “We no longer allow parks and green spaces to be taken for development.”

Choi, who studied forestry in Korea and later, recreation, sports and tourism in the United States, said the city has a budget to purchase land for parks and that it works with the nonprofit Seoul Green Trust, to generate ideas for new ones. At times, the green space builders have to get innovative, considering the limited landscape in the highly developed city. For example, a former waste dump was converted into World Cup Park. A public golf course became Seoul Forest, and the city purchased an abandoned brewery to create Yeondeungpo Park. The city is even offering financial incentives to building owners who install rooftop gardens and now requires new developments to incorporate park space as part of their projects.

Of course, the city has met with a fair share of opposition to this greening movement. Critics of the Chonggyecheon Stream project, for example, protested the displacement of local merchants as well as the hefty cost, which paid for removing three miles of highway and building seven miles of pipe to pump water there artifically from the Han River. “But the city persuaded people with economic compensation and traffic alternatives, and by constructing a new building for displaced merchants,” said Hanyang University’s Cho.

And now many of those who protested the stream’s recovery are enjoying its fruits: reduced air pollution, increased foot traffic and higher property value in the surrounding area. An estimated 60,000 people daily visit the stream, where the number of fish species increased from four to 25.

Choi said the big challenge these days is the cost of buying land. “Owners want more and more from the city. Land prices are very expensive in downtown Seoul.”

Choi offered to show this reporter Seoul Forest, a $243 million, 280-acre park (one-third the size of New York’s Central Park) built for both nature viewing and recreation. Seoul Forest, co-managed by the city and Seoul Green Trust’s Seoul Forest Conservancy, boasts 48,000 trees, attracts 10 million visitors annually, and is staffed by 130 volunteers who help maintain the grounds and run environmental education programs.

Inside, we passed gardens, playgrounds and areas for picnics and cultural events. Then we drove on a pedestrian bridge, from which we viewed a sprawling ecological forest, the park’s main area and wildlife sanctuary. We paused to observe deer, whom visitors can feed during certain hours. “The deer are the most popular feature of the park,” Choi said, noting that there 120 deer here, as well as squirrels and ducks.

We drove over an eco-bridge to see where Seoul Forest meets the Han River. En route back to the main entrance, we stopped to chat with park visitor Hay Sunyoung, who was being wheel-chaired around by a caregiver.

“This place is special,” said Hay. “Beautiful. Clean air. Coming here opens my mind.”

A 20-minute taxi ride later, an interpreter and I entered World Cup Park, which Choi had told me “used to be a dirty smelly place, where garbage and trash were dumped.” As we walked I discovered 840 acres of lush greenery, with ponds, gardens, picnic spots, playgrounds, and walking and biking trails. The day’s visitors included a group of bicyclists picnicking under the shade of trees.

“Our bike group cycles here four times a week,” one of them said. “It’s like a forest, with clean air, a good environment and a good bike trail. It’s easier biking here than to the mountains.”

***

“Seoul’s made progress, but we have a ways to go,” said Seoul Green Trust Secretary General Lee Kangoh, noting that the World Health Organization recommends at least 9 square meters of park space per city resident. Seoul has improved in recent years from 4.5 to more than 5 square meters (excluding surrounding mountains). New York City has 14 square meters per resident.

Lee’s six-year-old nonprofit, with 16 employees and funded by donations, works as a partner with the city to expand green spaces. “We’re like a brain trust,” explained Lee, who has worked on forestry projects in the Philippines, Maldvies and India.

He said it’s difficult to make Seoul green in large part because of the city’s 20th- century urbanization. “Today, 82 percent of the city is covered with concrete and asphalt,” he said. And even with the support of current Mayor Oh Sehoon to build more parks, there’s competition with parking and housing demands. Golf courses, too.

The group successfully protested plans to build a course at World Cup Park. A nature area was built in its place. “The golfers were angry,” Lee said. “But Seoul needs parks more than golf courses.”

Although Seoul Green Trust works on many large projects, Lee is especially enthused about recent efforts to create small neighborhood “pocket” parks. Each year the Trust creates six to 10 new pocket parks, averaging 500 square meters, about the size of a basketball court, often on empty land previously used for trash and parking. There are now more than 200 small neighborhood parks in Seoul. Lee’s goal is 1,000 by 2020.

“When Seoul was developed fast, the city’s traditional community system was destroyed,” said Lee, who complains that Seoul’s poor neighborhoods are “99 percent” covered by building and parking. “So when neighbors work together to create small parks, there’s also a social benefit.”

One of Lee’s favorite success stories is Mia Dong Park located in a southeast Seoul working-class neighborhood. “We taught the local people to care for the park,” he said. “When we finished, neighbors were so happy, they made us drinks and soup.

“I feel at home when working with people in neighborhoods,” Lee said. “We must persuade them. You can plant a tree in one week. But [in order to build a park,] we have to plant a seed in the community’s mind.”

***

Seoul’s push for parks appears to be moving forward full speed ahead. Dongdaemun Sports Stadium is currently being transformed into a park, as is an old private amusement park called Dream Land.

A $150 million project will improve Mt. Namsan Park by expanding green space, planting pine trees, adding rest areas and improving walking paths. When the 630-acre Yongsan U.S. Army military base eventually relocates south of Seoul, the vacated land will become a large park. Says Professor Hwang of Seoul National University: “Sooner or later, Yongsan will become Seoul’s ‘Central Park.’”

There are plans for a large north-south eco-corridor connecting Seoul’s large and small parks by 2015.

“I hope Seoul becomes an ‘eco-city’—a city that operates in the natural ecosystem,” said Prof. Cho Sehwan from Hanyang University. “To do that, we need to both add parks and introduce mixed land use, so Seoul will be whole.

“Parks and green spaces are not for decoration of the city,” he added. “They are properly left for future generations to live healthy and enjoy culture.”

By Sung-Min Yi  Photographs by Elizabeth Kim

On June 28, 2009, President Barack Obama hosted a White House reception commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall rebellion, a police-raid-turned-riot considered to be the opening salvo of the gay rights movement. There, he reasserted his commitment on issues important to the gay community: a repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act; laws that address domestic partner benefits and hate crimes; a reprieve on the ban that prohibits HIV-positive travelers from entering the United States.

“And finally,” he said, “I believe ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ doesn’t contribute to our national security.” Obama had promised to repeal the law, which requires the military to fire any openly gay, lesbian or bisexual service member. Cheers broke out from the crowd.

Two days later, a military review board in Syracuse, N.Y. recommended that the Army discharge 1st Lt. Dan Choi, 28, a West Point graduate, Arabic linguist, Iraq war veteran, Christian and homosexual.

“I was not invited,” said Choi of the Stonewall reception. “It would have been a nice cocktail party, but I was too busy getting kicked out of President Obama’s military.”

Choi with boyfriend Matthew Kinsey in New York.

Choi’s absence from such a high-profile event is surprising. “I am gay,” he announced on national television in March, becoming one of the first soldiers on active duty to invite discharge under the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy (often referred to as DADT) since Obama became president. The act transformed him into one of the most prominent gay activists in the country. Once a soldier in southern Baghdad, Choi now crisscrosses the United States, making appearances, leading parades, giving speeches and courting the media. At one point, he says, he did 18 straight hours of interviews.

“Right now, the poster child is Dan Choi,” said Randall Henderson, a member of USNA Out, an organization of gay and lesbian U.S. Naval Academy alumni.

Yet Choi is only one example of the many young veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who, upon returning, have become vocal critics of DADT. These veterans reflect the views of their civilian peers, who are shifting public opinion toward greater acceptance of sexual diversity. Gay marriage is now legal in six states, something unfathomable in 1993, when DADT became law. Further, military leaders have grown increasingly critical of the policy. Almost 13,000 service members have been expelled under DADT, and with the U.S. government waging two wars, resources are stretched thin even without the discharge of highly trained Arabic-speaking soldiers like Choi.

On May 5, 2nd Lt. Sandy Tsao, a U.S. Army officer based out of St. Louis, received  this handwritten note from President Obama, written in response to a letter from Tsao asking him to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” under which she was discharged.

Now, with a new commander-in-chief in the White House who has repeatedly pledged to repeal the policy, there is a growing sense that the days are numbered for Section 654 of U.S. Code Title 10. Yet Choi’s military future remains unknown. “I’m still in the military. I raised my hand to serve. That’s it,” he said. He’d rather be over there, in Iraq, helping to foster the fragile peace that has blossomed. But the way it’s turned out, the battle is closer to home.

***

The crowd roared as Choi took the podium at “Meet in the Middle,” a May 30 rally in Fresno, Calif. He raised his fist in solidarity, standing ramrod-straight in his blue sports coat, American flag pin affixed to his lapel, his West Point class ring on his right hand. As the applause died down, someone shouted, “Love is worth it!”

The phrase is a key refrain in Choi’s fiery rally speeches, one that underscores his motivation for coming out so publicly, one he urges the crowd to chant along with him at the rhetorical peak of his address. “It’s the reason I got out of the Army,” he said. “So I could grow through an intimate love relationship.”

Predictably, Choi’s fame has complicated matters at home. Choi had come out to his family last November, but his parents were still livid when they first saw Choi’s story in a Los Angeles area Korean-language newspaper earlier this year. “It caused a huge blowup,” said Grace Choi, 25, Dan’s sister.

Choi is the son of a minister who moved the family around as he spoke at Korean churches throughout Southern California. The household’s Korean Southern Baptist ethos made it difficult for Choi to confront his sexual orientation, which he became aware of during grade school. “I remember crying my eyes out at [church] retreats because I just wanted to pop a boner for Michelle Pfeiffer the next morning,” he said. “That’s the strangest thing to be praying about.”

The Southern Baptists decry homosexuality and maintain a “hate the sin, love the sinner” stance, an attitude that has wounded Choi deeply. “Those aren’t the lessons of God,” he said. “The saddest thing is that established religion has robbed gays and lesbians of faith.”

Throughout his upbringing, Choi stayed active in school and church activities, determined to keep his sexual orientation a secret.

His list of high school extracurriculars could belong to any overachiever’s: student body president, varsity swim team, marching band drum major. During his senior year, after watching Saving Private Ryan, he decided to attend West Point. At the time—in 1998—the possibility of war seemed remote.

All that changed when terrorists struck New York City’s Twin Towers during Choi’s junior year at the prestigious military academy. He had already been studying Arabic, but 9/11 spurred him to become fluent. And so, he became one of the eight soldiers from his graduating class who majored in the language.

Choi, deployed in Iraq.

Choi’s eventual assignment: A tour of duty in the infamous “Triangle of Death” in southern Baghdad, Iraq, in 2006.

During his tour, Choi often served as a bilingual liaison between local leaders and the U.S. Army. He would quiet angry crowds after residences had been bombed, and he once recited a poem at a meeting for a Baghdad neighborhood governance council.

He had also studied engineering at West Point, and led infrastructure reconstruction projects in Iraq. The experience was so fulfilling that “I actually wanted to live there,” he said. When Choi completed an extended tour of duty in 2007, he transferred to active duty with the New York National Guard and planned to go on another tour as soon as he could.

Then he met Matthew Kinsey, 45, an executive for Gucci. They quickly became close, and started dating. Kinsey joked that his Gucci connections would be “so perfect for your Korean relatives.” Choi, whose army training had made him accustomed to wearing the same shirt every day, finally had someone to dress up for. And, for the first time in his life, he was in love.

Naturally, he wanted to talk about it. But Choi, when sharing with his fellow soldiers, had to be careful with his pronouns. He had to refer to Matthew by a code name: Martha.

The situation was classic DADT. Proponents of the law generally cite a homosexual’s negative effects on military discipline, troop morale and unit cohesion. Choi felt the irony of the old arguments, as he found his own ability to be part of the unit compromised by his need to lie. “It’s not a matter of not asking and not telling,” said Choi. “It’s a matter of…being secretive, ducking and hiding, being completely terrorized,” he said.

So, in March 2009, Choi came out publicly on the pages of the Army Times and on MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show. He also co-founded Knights Out, an organization of gay and lesbian West Point alumni. And as he began his life as an openly gay man, he knew he was risking his career for love. But, it was worth it.

“When you have that commitment and sacrifice and growth and completeness, it’s not worth it to lie about that,” Choi said. “So it becomes worth it to let people know and to share that. It’s something that makes you a whole person.”

But a month after coming out, Choi received his discharge letter, giving him two options: to accept an honorable discharge, or to plead his case before a military review board. He chose the latter. Choi also wrote a letter to Obama, asking for a reprieve. The message went unanswered, which was surprising given the president’s handwritten note in response to a similar letter from recently discharged 2nd Lt. Sandy Tsao (see previous page). Choi went before the board bearing a petition with 424,343 signatures of support.

The board still recommended that the Army fire Choi. He now awaits final word from the 1st U.S. Army commanding general, according to Eric Durr, director of public affairs for the New York National Guard. There is no way of knowing exactly when the decision will be made, Durr added, and until then, Choi remains an officer with the Army.

While he waits for an answer, Choi is living with Kinsey in New York. He is currently not speaking to his parents. For six months, he lived with them, hoping that his presence would eventually persuade them to accept their gay son. Instead, they condemned his life “every single day,” said Choi. His father did, however, tell his sister recently: “It’s OK if you support your brother and everything, but you should still go to church.”

The lieutenant called it a promising sign that his parents will eventually choose family over “misused Bible verses.”

***

Choi was only 10 years old in 1991, when Gulf War veterans, many of whom had been out to their units, were returning home and facing expulsion under the military’s strict ban on homosexuals. Then-Governor Bill Clinton campaigned on a promise to allow gays to serve, and he tackled the issue early during his first presidential term.

He soon met vigorous opposition. Military officials, including then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell, spoke of the need to keep homosexuals separated from the unit because of their negative effect on good discipline and order. Many appeared to embrace the argument, as a 1994 Wall Street Journal-NBC poll found that only 44 percent of respondents thought that openly gay Americans should be allowed to serve in the military.

Clinton accepted DADT as a compromise. Instead of an outright ban, the military wouldn’t “ask” questions about sexual orientation. Gay Americans could serve so long as they kept their sexual orientation under wraps.

Since then, public and military opinion has shifted toward greater acceptance of homosexuals. A 2009 Washington Post-ABC News poll found that 75 percent of respondents thought that openly gay Americans should be allowed to serve. A 2006 Zogby poll revealed widespread tolerance among veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq, with nearly three in four military personnel indicating that they were “personally comfortable in the presence of gays and lesbians.” And late last year, more than 100 retired military leaders signed a letter urging Obama to repeal DADT.

Obama recently laid out his plan for fulfilling his campaign promise by pursuing alternatives to full enforcement of DADT while waiting for Congress to finalize a bill that would repeal the law.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates elaborated on the first part of the strategy, recently expressing a desire to find “a more humane way to apply the law,” particularly in cases that find “third parties trying to harm someone who may be gay and in the service.”

Both houses of Congress are working to present Obama with the legislative repeal he seeks to sign into law. This fall the Senate Armed Services Committee will hold hearings on DADT. It will be the first formal re-assessment of the Clinton-era policy since Congress passed it into law more than 15 years ago.

Meanwhile, the Military Readiness Enhancement Act, which would do away with DADT, works its way through the House of Representatives. U.S. Representative Patrick Murphy (D-VA), an Iraq War veteran, recently became the new sponsor of the bill, “lighting a fire” under efforts to get it passed, according to Kevin Nix of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, an organization dedicated to ending discrimination against military personnel affected by DADT. At the time of this writing, the bill had 165 co-sponsors, approaching the 218 that would guarantee a majority. SLDN is lobbying for more sponsors, and Nix said, “We’re very interested in getting this done over the next year.”

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs gave a looser timeline, predicting DADT would be repealed by the end of Obama’s first term.

***

On a recent July night in Los Angeles, Choi spoke at a screening of Silent Partners, a documentary about the often stressful effects of DADT on soldiers and their same-sex partners. Julianne Sohn, another Korean American Iraq war veteran discharged under DADT, was also a panelist.

“We have our own DADT policy in our community,” said Sohn, of Korean Americans. “But if people do come out, it humanizes gay people. You realize: They’re my brother, they’re my cousin, they’re my daughter or son.

“I actually had relationships while I was in the military on active duty,” added Sohn. “And so, for me, this policy is very personal and very much an affront to a person’s basic right to love somebody. Can you imagine spending an entire week—how about four years—not talking about your spouse to somebody else?”

The event drew its share of Asian Americans; one of them, Harold Kameya, a member of the Asian Pacific Islander Parents, Families & Friends of Lesbians and Gays, spoke admiringly of Choi’s activism. “Especially when Koreans [and] Asians are supposed to keep quiet and not stick their heads out, you have a person so brave like Lt. Choi [speak out],” said Kameya, whose daughter came out to him and his wife, third-generation Okinawan Americans, in 1988.

Like most soldiers discharged under DADT, Choi insists that he would re-enlist if given the chance. But at this point, it’s difficult to see him fitting in as just another soldier, just another officer. He seems to have come too far from his original trajectory.

Though Choi is clearly running with his celebrity at this point, wielding it to advance his cause, his fame indeed, has come with costs. He has risked his career, isolated himself from his parents, and placed upon himself the burden of spokesperson—a role that he, as a military man, must still learn to reconcile.

“It’s a little difficult for soldiers to call themselves activists,” Choi said, “particularly because we’re told: do not protest. And we study and practice and train on how to quell the riot. [But] ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ goes against all our values. All we’re saying is: don’t lie and don’t hide. All I did was refuse to lie. How is that activism? Why is that extraordinary?”

The movement to abolish DADT, which Choi now represents, is already echoing past battles for equality. In 1981, the Department of Defense published a study regarding gays in the military that made reference to the debate over the racial integration of the military earlier that century:

“The order to integrate blacks was first met with stout resistance by traditionalists in the military establishment. Dire consequences were predicted for maintaining discipline, building group morale, and achieving military organizational goals.”

None of those predictions came true.

Additional reporting by Julie Ha.

by Janice Jann

To call Jenna Ushkowitz a triple-threat would be an accurate description. On Glee, FOX’s wildly anticipated show about a misfit-filled high school glee club, the 23-year-old actress/singer/dancer emotes, croons and gets jiggy with it—all for a television audience of millions. A born performer, Ushkowitz has appeared on TV shows like Sesame Street and As the World Turns, and on Broadway in “The King and I” and “Spring Awakening.” And it looks like her career is just warming up.

Tell me about your last name, Ushkowitz.

It’s Polish. I was actually adopted from Korea when I was 3 months old. My father is Polish-Italian and my mother is Irish-English.

How’d you start performing?

People would always tell my parents I was a funny little girl because I would go up to people in restaurants and say hi. I was very outgoing, so they took me to do print and commercial work. I booked my first job at age 3 and it went from there. At 9, I went in for a call for “The King and I.” But it was at age 15 that I was really introduced to musical theater. I went to a performing arts high school, so along with regular classes, there was also theater, dancing and choir.

Your character on Glee, Tina, is an outcast. What was your high school experience like?

I loved high school. I did everything I could possibly do. I was in student council and high school musicals. I was a total theater geek.

With three Teen Choice Award nominations, Glee is already off to an amazing start. Are you prepared for your impending fame?

[Laughs] That’s a good way to put it. Everyone keeps saying to us, “It’s going to be a hit, it’s going to be a hit,” and all you can do is work hard and just cross your fingers. I think we can just take it step by step at that point. Do we feel that it’s special? Yes. But I don’t think any of us are thinking, “Oh, we’re going to be so famous.”

By Vanessa Hua  Photo by Elena Chien

Long before eco became chic, Los Angeles clothing and housewares designer Christina Kim sought ways to reuse her leftover textiles: the scraps of a delicate jamdani blouse might be reborn as a patchwork dress, and in the third generation of recycling, as an embroidered shawl. The cuttings from African wax print skirts might return in a bracelet.

Though time-consuming and costly, the process was and is necessary, insists Kim, who founded Dosa in 1982 and has since earned a global reputation as an earth-friendly designer. Kim’s conscientious approach and unique products have won fans in celebrities Nicole Kidman and Jennifer Aniston. TIME magazine named her one of its 2003 Innovators of the Year. Also a staunch supporter of fair labor practices, the 52-year-old is equally concerned about the human hands who produce her label’s products.

“It’s important to understand how things are made, what they cost,” says the petite and expressive Kim from her downtown Los Angeles factory as a cutting machine droned from another garment-maker nearby. She’s wearing a black tunic, jeans and woven leather sandals, along with dangling earrings—her style chic and bohemian.

Something intricately made, yet cheaply priced, means the workers who made them were likely paid very little, she explains. “People need to question low prices and high prices. It’s about conscientious production, from beginning to end. We don’t cut corners. We try to think about the final impact we are making.”

And Kim wants her customers to think about it, too. Her company’s website features a glossary of terms—with words like paat, chutka and zari—along with stories behind the fabrics and the designs. Dosa uses natural ingredients like black tea and fruit to dye cloth, “non-violent” silk (the silkworms aren’t killed during the process), and organic cotton, grown from non-genetically modified seeds. Her line includes a $30 patchwork bracelet and a $1,850 reversible coat.

Dosa’s spacious, light-filled headquarters in Los Angeles’ fashion district is on a single floor, filled with art installations, racks of clothes from the upcoming line, desks, the plastic-wrapped inventory stacked on shelves and sewing machines. Discards from the cutting table are sorted into bins and stored by material and weight—sometimes for years—until Kim can find a use for them. She estimates that up to 70 percent of her scraps are reused.

There are no cubicles and no offices here. Not only does Kim want to put her employees on equal footing, she also wants the process of production to be transparent.

It’s a philosophy she takes with her whether she collaborates with artisans in Oaxaca, Mexico, or workers in Calcutta, India. “I want to know how much people are paid,” says Kim, known to compensate her workers twice as much as the local rate. In fact, she’s committed to setting down roots in the communities where her workers live and building long-term relationships that outlast a single fashion season. Kim teaches them how to produce quality goods and tries to tailor the process, and even the products, to their circumstances. For example, in Saraspur in the Indian district of Ahmedabad, the village artisans who do their work at home have trouble transporting larger pieces back and forth, so instead, she has them make bracelets, which are easier to carry.

Kim’s sensibility is, in part, informed by her upbringing in post-war South Korea, where she learned the importance of making do with the materials at hand. As a child, she learned how to knit, sew and embroider from books and from her grandmother, who sewed elaborate hanboks and traditional socks. Kim, who comes from a family of scholars, was exposed early on to art and to other cultures—two loves that continue to influence her work.

In 1971, at 15, Kim moved to Los Angeles to join her parents, who had left South Korea to attend graduate school in the states. She studied fine art at the University of Washington, and lived in Italy before settling in New York. On a whim, she made boxer shorts from Liberty Cotton and African print cloth she found on the Lower East Side. The order she placed at high-end retailer Henri Bendel quickly sold out—not once, but twice—and she launched her company with the help of her mother soon after. The company’s name is a nod to her mother, a master pattern-maker whose nickname means “expert” in Korean.

“My life has been like that,” Kim says with a chuckle. “Nothing has been planned.”

The Dosa label has two stores in the U.S., in Los Angeles and New York, and sells in up to 80 retailers in 20 countries. And that’s enough for Kim. “I don’t dream of being a big global brand or on a billboard,” she says.

While traveling, Kim loves to sit down with workers at meals. She raves about a recipe she recently learned from locals in India: of thinly sliced eggplant, dried in the sun and coated with cornmeal and masala spice. There, she adds, the workers may be segregated by profession, religion and caste, but her mingling enables them to come together. “For me, it is about the human relations I am building,” says Kim. “You really share in the moment.”

Just a reminder, the SMTOWN live streaming K-pop concert is going on ... right now! http://t.co/JywXQ91F

I uploaded a @YouTube video http://t.co/NnQFpSdq SMTOWN World Tour - EXO, SHINEE, f(x) Performance P.2

I uploaded a @YouTube video http://t.co/pyz4bAKp SMTOWN World Tour - EXO, SHINEE, f(x) Interview P.1

I uploaded a @YouTube video http://t.co/G5Kfcf1W SMTOWN World Tour - Girl's Generation Performance P.2

I uploaded a @YouTube video http://t.co/7vsAF101 SMTOWN World Tour - Girl's Generation Interview P.1