K-pop boys are finally in their fashion era, but I miss the outfits of 2nd gen idols

Call me old, but let me go down memory lane...

(Big Bang, mohawks and all…)

It’s safe to say the last four weeks have been a blur of fashion announcements in the K-pop world.

In the world of BTS alone, Jimin is now officially an ambassador with DIOR, J-Hope an ambassador with Louis Vuitton (BTS were named ambassadors last year), and Suga an ambassador with Valentino.

Then came the fashion weeks, which served us endless content and images that blessed our eyes. ENHYPEN became the first K-pop boy group to attend an overseas fashion show in Milan for Prada’s Fall 2023 men’s show. Seventeen’s Jeonghan and Hoshi attended Yves Saint Laurent and AMI Paris shows respectively. Big Bang’s Taeyang (Givenchy) and G-Dragon (Chanel) were also at Paris Fashion Week. NCT’s Ten also went to the YSL show. This past week Seventeen’s Mingyu and Joshua attended the MARNI Fall/Winter 2023 Fashion Show in Tokyo. The list goes on and on.

While I’m excited and thrilled about all the looks that are being served, I do remember a time when second generation K-pop boy groups gave us —for lack of of a better word —tacky looks. The early 2000s was the age of shaggy hair, black eyeliner, button-down vests, skinny jeans and skinny ties.

Call me old, but I am nostalgic for those times.

I will never forget watching Super Junior’s “SORRY SORRY” music video for the first time in 2009, finding humour in the outfits, but mesmerized by the boys catchy chorus and signature choreography.

Some of my favourite looks however, come from SHINee, who remain pop culture memes for their outfits. The age of “Replay”, “Lucifer” and “Ring Ding Dong” brought us wavy long permed hair, bleached locks, chains and blazers. No one can deny SHINee’s influence in the K-pop scene with their sound, performance and vocal ability. After all, their “Lucifer” dance practice basically popularized these video concepts amongst K-pop groups (I’d like to think the effect of Taemin’s striped shirt added to that). Shout out as well to Key’s front manbun! It’s hard to see exactly what his hair looks like because of the early 2000s video quality…

But I am sorry to say their looks were something else! They were WILD! SHINee came around the time when Boys Over Flowers basically kicked off the Hallyu wave. Who can forget Lee Minho’s iconic wavy, permed hairstyle, after all? If that was a trend back then, it would only make sense for K-pop boy groups to have hair like that too.

The fashion of K-pop boys were obviously something I didn’t really understand or care for back then in the early 2000s. Though as I look back, I loved it because they were campy. I need K-pop to embrace wild hair colours and cuts again. Give me mohawks, unconventional haircuts and rainbow hair. Yes, it was all cringey, but so entertaining at the same time!

Plus, as a girl who grew up listening to pop-punk in the suburbs of Toronto, I was still getting to know what it truly meant to immerse myself in Asian pop culture at a time when my white classmates at school did not find it very cool. K-pop opened up a new world for me, and these looks catered to my growing fascination of the genre.

(SHINee in their “Ring Ding Dong” era)

Back then, we were poor high school students who didn’t care too deeply about the outfits K-pop singers wore or buying the same sweater or designer T-shirt our favourite idols are wearing. Social media was not as prevalent as what it is now. We got to simply enjoy the music and performance for what it was, and it was definitely a much easier time.

That being said, there are things from that era that belong in the past.

Many groups made questionable and problematic choices in regards to outfits and hairstyles. Groups like Big Bang dawned durags and cornrows in videos like “La-La-La”. And almost two decades later, it’s uncomfortable to rewatch and look back at some of these videos.

K-pop has historically been blamed for taking and stealing from Black culture and aesthetics. Unfortunately, some idols have not nearly acknowledged these issues enough in the present day. I’d like to hope the industry is evolving into something more progressive, especially when anti-Black racism continues to be a serious issue. But in fact, we’re not progressing fast enough.

Many fans continue to hold K-pop idols accountable for their racist actions. However, we need to get to a point of not having to do that, and hope that artists themselves can acknowledge and apologize for past wrongdoings and give credit when it’s due.

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However, my sentiment of wanting wild looks and hairstyles to come back still stands. I miss the days of K-pop where artists and labels didn’t take themselves or their looks too seriously. While tacky, they were still creative. I think there’s room to find ways to incorporate that while leaving the problematic stuff in the past. A recent example is Jimin’s bleached rainbow hair in the Butter music video. While I know I could never pull it off, he looked COOL and SO GOOD. In fact, on my plane ride to Vegas to see BTS last April, a girl a few rows in front of me did her hair like him as a tribute.

Now when it comes to the renaissance we’re having with high fashion labels taking notice of K-pop boys, I can’t help but feel a bit skeptical. I worry that fans may be driven to high levels of commercialization and that K-pop boys and their looks are being used to drum up sales.

I know that K-pop and fashion is a business. These industries rely on fans and supporters opening up their wallets to buy products like albums, clothing and accessories to get more money. As someone who lived in Hong Kong, I know just how prevalent shopping and consumerism is in the culture of Asian communities. Weekends are almost always dedicated to going to malls filled with expensive designer stores. It’s no surprise then, that high fashion labels are now increasingly bringing in K-pop stars as ambassadors to further tap into the Asian market.

I just hope these collaborations will be meaningful in the long run.

At a time when Asian representation continues to be top of mind, I hope that fashion brands don’t turn K-pop boys into ambassadors as some sort of “flavour of the month” trend. Representation is more than just having high profile Asian faces sitting front row and wearing your products. Brands need to go a step further to encourage, amplify and support the Asian community as a whole.

Don’t get me wrong, I love that K-pop artists are being taken seriously in the fashion world. They absolutely deserve it! I just hope I’m wrong in my skepticism. That’s because if companies are looking at including idols in their branding to raise diversity points just to drive up sales, then that’s not really going to cut it.

Down the line, I would LOVE to see K-pop idols being more active in their collaborations, and adding some flair to high fashion labels. Just as J-Hope worked with artist KAWs on his album Jack in the Box, wouldn’t it be cool to see a clothing collection inspired by something like that? Or wouldn’t it be awesome to see Kim Taehyung furthering his work with Celine to make a collection of handbags as well (we know how popular his Boston Bag was…)?

The possibilities are endless, and it could only further benefit the fashion and K-pop worlds.

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