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Announcing: Seoul Street Fashion Week's Spring 2017 Lookbook MVP

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Of all my 150+ images shot this season, I have a favorite, an M.V.P.

Lavender tennis skirt with black bow. Fantasy Swimmer bag. Princessy top. She is working a "princess" concept. And it works. So stop being jealous.

13 Likes, 1 Comments - @kuraeji on Instagram: "Lavender tennis skirt with black bow. Fantasy Swimmer bag. Princessy top. She is working a..."

In this, SSFW's inaugural lookbook season, our Most Venerable Paepi award goes to SHIN Jiyoung, a 3rd-year middle school student hailing from Gangweondo, out in the west side of Korea. 

No, you can't have her Fantasy Swimmer bag from Japan. Because you are not her and you cannot have one. Any more questions?

16 Likes, 1 Comments - @kuraeji on Instagram: "No, you can't have her Fantasy Swimmer bag from Japan. Because you are not her and you cannot have..."

Why, do you ask, does Little Miss Shin deserve this great honor? Well, it's pretty simple -- her effort and attitude, which is all channeled through her awesomely cute outfit. 

  1. She (and her buds) came in all the way from the West Coast to do the Seoul Fashion Week thing at likely great psycic and fiscal cost as a middle schooler. 
  2. Even as many paepi older than her shy away from self-classifying with that term lest they be thought of ass arrogant or insufficiently humble, Jiyoung and her buds eagerly embrace the term and concept. As true "fashion people" (hence, pae-pi in Korean) who are obsessed with clothing and clothing culture, she certainly fits the bill, even if others might want to cast aspersions.
  3. Her concept, despite what my older Instagram caption says, is that of a "country girl" (which she technically is), unironically and straightforwardly argued through her old-fashioned, lace-encrusted Peter Pan collar, gaudy color choices, and outlandishly bright and ferociously feminine bag from Japan. She just loves it all. And her look. And it takes major gonads to walk around Fashion Week in an outfit no older, more mature and established paepi type would ever take seriously. She took a real risk. She's brave. She felt her fashion enough to possibly get snickered at. And she's in middle school. Now, that's true grit right there. 

And I just think she's a positive, smart young lady who makes me happy to know she exists and is out in her schhol with friends personifying the Revolution. It is from 3rd-year middle school kids such as Jiyoung that the change will come. This is where the true creativity lies, how great sartorial and aesthetic attention is gathered. And she did it with her clever and cute concept, some effort, and a whole lotta chutzpah. And I very much like to see that out there.

It was an honor and a pleasure to meet you, kid.  See you out there again soon!

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An Elucidatively Ethnographic and Slightly Sartorial Consideration of the Foreign Ethnic Enclaves Itaewon and "Haebangchon" on Christmas Eve

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제목: “The T100 Fishnets Couple” 
쵤영 장소: Itaewon, Seoul
촬영내용: Itaewon has become the new hot destination for Christmas and Christmas Eve, which is a romantic holiday for young people in their 20s in Korea. We caught this student couple in one of the hottest coffee shops in the area, the T100. The girl is wearing one of the biggest fashion items we saw on the street from last Seoul Fashion Week, wide fishnet stockings, along with the winter miniskirt. 

Christmas Eve dates in Itaewon.

See this Instagram photo by @kuraeji * 23 likes



제목: “SKECHERS Eskimo & Minidress Couple” 
쵤영 장소: Itaewon, Seoul
촬영내용: Itaewon has become the new hot destination for Christmas and Christmas Eve, and we caught this working couple in one of the hottest areas in Itaewon, where a place once full of bars for Americn GIs in years past has now become full of coffee shops and clothing stores, along with many trendy restaurants. 

 

 

제목: “Christmas Girlfriends” 
쵤영 장소: Itaewon, Seoul
촬영내용: Itaewon has become the new hot destination for Christmas and Christmas Eve for young working girls in their 20s, and and not just for couples. Here, 3 students in their early 20s, are having a communal Christmas date, just like many groups of young girls who meet on the holiday to help round out the year with friendship and food. Itaewon has become a place for gendered consumption, led by women in their 20s and 30s — the only Korean men you really see here these days are almost always brought there by women, often their girlfriends. 

Itaewon Christmas friends redux. Cuz it's the season still.

See this Instagram photo by @kuraeji * 10 likes

Christmas Eve with the girls in Itaewon.

See this Instagram photo by @kuraeji * 17 likes

 

 

제목: “Christmas Sisters” 
쵤영 장소: Itaewon, Seoul
촬영내용: Itaewon has become the new hot destination for Christmas and Christmas Eve for young working girls in their 20s, and and not just for couples. Here two sisters go out on a “Christmas date” because they claim to have no boyfriends. The sister in red is studying to become a police officer, while the sister with the amazing super-short winter minidress tells us that “it is never too cold to look good.”

The two Christmas sisters in Itaewon.

See this Instagram photo by @kuraeji * 14 likes

 

 

 

제목: “The Le Cafe Girl” 
쵤영 장소: Haebangchon, Seoul
촬영내용: “Haebangchon” is the nickname for the small neighbourhood that was originally a North Korean refugee camp area after the Korean War since it was right next to the US military base. It became a haven for foreign residents, first American GIs looking for cheap, off-base housing, then for the growing ranks of foreign English teachers looking for US-style rent. Now, it’s become a trendy destination for young Korean women looking for the next exotic thing to eat with their friends. And hence, fashionable people flock here nowadays. we caught this young lady, a fashion designer in her mid-20s outside a local cafe with a trendy, formal miniskirt to die for, along with the trendy black loafers
of the season. 

 

 

제목: “Hackney Girls” 
쵤영 장소: Haebangchon, Seoul
촬영내용: “Haebangchon”, as a trendy destination for young Korean women looking for the next exotic place to go with friends, is now a destination to which fashionable people flock nowadays. We caught these two young ladies outside the HACKNEY coffee shop, this is absolutely the most popular one in the area for young, Korean girls in their early 20s. 

 

 


제목: “The Fancy Kobawoo Couple” 
쵤영 장소: Haebangchon, Seoul
촬영내용: “Haebangchon”, as a a trendy destination for young Korean women looking for the next exotic place to go with friends, is now a destination to which fashionable people flock nowadays. We caught this couple outside the Bonny’s Pizza sports pub/pizza place, which has become the place to experience American foreignness for young Koreans. People definitely dress their best to go here, and this couple was the most dressed up in the line on Christmas Eve, which is a hard competition to win. Interestingly, formal looks can be deceiving — or at least, concealing — he’s a tattoo artist and she’s a fashion design student.

 

 

제목: “The Matching  Bonny's Couple” 
쵤영 장소: Haebangchon, Seoul
촬영내용: “Haebangchon”, as a a trendy destination for young Korean women looking for the next exotic place to go with friends, is now a destination to which fashionable people flock nowadays. We caught this couple outside the Bonny’s Pizza sports pub coffee shop, which has become the place to experience American foreignness for young Koreans. It is also directly across from the most iconic place in Haebangchon, the Kobawoo Supermarket. This young couple in their mid-20s was very Korean and super-matchy in a wintery way — with coats and Adidas shoes. This is absolutely THE thing for Korean couples to do, as it publicly declares their couple status to all who can see, and this was one of the best examples of the winter, on the most romantic day of the year, in one of the most popular places for young people in Seoul these days. 

Kobawoo Christmas couple. Caught in line at Bonny's Pizza.

See this Instagram photo by @kuraeji * 10 likes

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Korean Street Fashion Editorial: Mom Jeans Shorts

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I'm not sure if these are actually a huge trend in Korea yet. Things that get big in Korea are sometimes hit or miss and catch on for pretty random reasons. But if model Hayoung KO and photographer Zoomsniper's street fashion editorial is any indication, prepare your eyes for a lot of oversized "mom" shorts  that will converge with a converging pair of sartorial tendencies on Seoul streets these days, one being high-waisted anything, with the other being an increasingly popular taste for overt and self-conscious normcore looks, which overlap with previous trend tendencies of Korean "boko" or "revival" (read: ironically retro) clothing that was around in Korea far before "normcore" was a thing in the west. What has in the west become seen as an "ironic" wearing of old styles as a new thing has existed in Korea as a sartorial act of nostalgia and a mixing of social and personal moments of innocence in much the same why that Earnst Haeckel famously postulated that "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" -- that the evolutionary history of a species is recapitulated in the embryonic development of each individual organism of that species.

Or one might understand youth fashion culture in Korea in terms of the similar biological concept of neoteny, which postulates that the adult form of an organism takes as its final shape that of an increasingly younger version of that species form, or to make the analogy clearer (and quite possibly, break down completely from this point), the current fashionable form takes on an earlier version of the communal dressed self to define a sort of sartorial neoteny.

In terms of human evolution, this is why our heads in our adult form has been getting larger as we evolve, and why -- although this is obviously meant to taken only half-seriously -- jeans are getting bigger, socks thicker, and waists higher on women, even as Penny Loafers come back into fashion.

NOT ironi in the slightest, from 2007. 

NOT ironi in the slightest, from 2007. 

All of this is being done, in 2009 near Sookmyeong Women's University, without the slightest bit of irony. 

All of this is being done, in 2009 near Sookmyeong Women's University, without the slightest bit of irony. 

But the point here is that, in Korea, none of these retro tastes are really "ironic" in the way the have to be in much of the West in order to come back -- in Korea, it is simply a harkening back to older, bygone forms that carry their own, culturally-specific and loaded connotations of innocence, youth, and nostalgia. And this is where we will let Hayeong and Zoomsniper take the reins, with their quite recent and creative take on the subject, all done without irony. Indeed, to wit: 

The idea of sexually attractive young females willingly prancing around New York City in mom jeans was so unfathomable for Eugenia Williamson that she could only come to one conclusion: The “hipsters” were doing it “ironically.” The truth is that hipsters are extinct, that irony as a lifestyle choice is over, and that the kids these days are sincere. 

This is especially true in Korea, where the so-called "normcore" of the west indeed does not have to happen in the ironic mode, which seem to be the only way nostalgia fashion is understood these days there. Enjoy this well-shot and post-produced piece, which is photographed and edited in a playfully nostalgic style worthy of the model and the clothing.

Editorial Credits and other pertinent information:

Model: Hayoung KO

Photographer: Yangi HYEON, a.k.a. Zoomsniper

Location: Yongma Land, an abandoned amusement park in Mangwoo-dong, Seoul. 

Hair: Hayoung KO

Makeup: Hayoung KO

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Korean Street Fashion Editorial: The Tennis Skirt

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Tennis skirts have been trending on the streets of Seoul for at least a year now, without much sign of abating. SSFW photographer Zoomsniper and model Hayoung KO fill us in with their editorial shoot in the heart of fashionable Hongdae. 

Working in one of the most popular and fashionable street fashion photography locations in Seoul, the little playground in the center of the Hongik University area (known colloquially as Hongdae), model Hayoung KO and photographer Zoomsniper collaborate to document the feel of not just a particular kind of clothing, but the feel of this key neighborhood-to-know that is the kernel of Korea's most reknowned arts/fashion/subculture neighborhood, and universally regarded as the most socially open and free social space in Korea. 

And here's a few alternates, in black, just to balance things out. 

Thanks, Hayoung!

Editorial Credits and other pertinent information:

Model: Hayoung KO

Photographer: Yangi HYEON, a.k.a. Zoomsniper

Location: Hongdae

Hair: Hayoung KO

Makeup: Hayoung KO

White Tennis Skirt: THETIEKINGDOM