Model found hanged in Paris

A TOP South Korean model, a fashion week regular in New York, Milan and Paris, has been found hanged in her Paris apartment, police said yesterday.

Daul Kim was found dead on Thursday by her boyfriend, who alerted the authorities.

Paris police are treating the incident as suicide.

Kim's agent, Alessandra Bertoldini of the Next modeling agency, said the model's mother was due to arrive in Paris yesterday.

Raised in Seoul and Singapore, Kim modeled in Asia before making her fashion week debut in Paris in 2007, modeling for top brands such as Chanel, Dries van Noten and Maison Martin Margiela, among others, her Seoul agency, Esteem, said. She most recently appeared during Seoul fashion week in October.

Known for her thick mane of hair -- sometimes dyed blonde -- and her quirky sensibility, Kim was celebrated for her sense of style. She was featured recently in a commercial for Christopher Kane's line of clothing for Britain's Topshop.

Kim also was an accomplished painter and video film maker who had a solo show of her artwork in Seoul.

In an October 30 entry on her blog, Kim wrote she was "mad depressed and overworked," and in another entry said "the more I gain the more lonely it is ... I know I'm like a ghost." The last entry on her blog, dated November 18, was titled "say hi to forever."

South Korea has had a string of high-profile suicides recently.

Former President Roh Moo-hyun jumped to his death in May while embroiled in a corruption scandal and Park Yong-oh, ex-chairman of South Korea's oldest conglomerate the Doosan Group, killed himself earlier this month. In 2008, top actress Choi Jin-sil committed suicide, following in the footsteps of a fellow actor. A young actress in one of South Korea's popular soap operas also took her own life.