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Girls' Generation
Born
Girls' Generation, "Gee" music video and stages, January 2009
The look is almost aggressively simple: plain white tees with skinny jeans, in bright candy colors in the video, where nine members play shop mannequins who come to life, and in dark denim on some stages. SM visual director Min Hee-jin, who later shaped NewJeans, coordinated it. That simplicity is exactly why it spread. Anyone could copy it, and across South Korea plenty of people did, making colored skinny jeans one of the defining street looks of the late 2000s. It is the clearest early proof that a K-pop video could set what ordinary fans wore, years before luxury houses started paying attention.
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2NE1
Born
2NE1, "I Am the Best" music video, June 2011
Where most girl groups of the era sold sweetness, 2NE1 went for glam punk: futuristic armor, wild hair and CL dressed as a wrestler, with street pieces by London designer Sophie Hulme among the credits. It showed that a K-pop video could borrow from the runway's edgier end rather than from pop costume shops, and the song's later run in a Microsoft Surface commercial carried that image well past the K-pop audience. If you want to see where the fierce, confident styling of later girl groups comes from, start here.
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방탄소년단
Born
BTS, "Idol" hanbok looks, 2018 and 2020
BTS wore modern hanbok in the "Idol" video, designed by Baek Oak-soo, and those outfits were later put on public display in Seoul's Gangnam district during the 2018 Gangnam Festival. Two years on, the group performed "Idol" at Gyeongbok Palace for NBC's Tonight Show, with Suga and J-Hope in hanbok-inspired suits by Kim Rieul. Together the two moments helped turn hanbok from holiday dress into something a global audience saw as current, and opened the door for the K-pop hanbok looks that followed.
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BLACKPINK
Born
Blackpink, "How You Like That" music video, June 2020
In a video where luxury labels would have been the expected choice, Blackpink danced in modernized hanbok with bright colors and bold prints. Jennie's and Rosé's pieces came from designer Kim Dan-ha of Danha, while Jisoo's and Lisa's were made in-house by the group's styling team. Danha's online shop was flooded with visitors and foreign customers afterward, which made this the moment modern hanbok became something fans abroad actually went looking to buy.
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방탄소년단
Born
BTS, Louis Vuitton tailoring at the Grammys, March 2021
BTS opened their Grammys night in seven different looks from Virgil Abloh's fall-winter 2021 Louis Vuitton menswear collection, each a separate take on tailoring rather than a matching boy-band uniform. The group had been invited to the collection's virtual unveiling beforehand, and in April 2021 Louis Vuitton named them house ambassadors, with a Seoul spin-off show that July as their first official appearance in the role. If you want the moment BTS's stage tailoring turned into a full luxury partnership, this is it.
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Lisa (rapper)
Born
Lisa, "Lalisa" music video, September 2021
Among the video's many costume changes, the one that mattered most was a golden beaded dress and cape with a tall pointed headdress drawn from Thai classical dance, known as rad klao yod. Lisa, who is Thai, put a piece of national dress at the center of her first solo single, and the effect was immediate: Bangkok stalls reported a surge in sales of traditional outfits and handmade headpieces. Few K-pop looks have sent fans back to their own heritage so directly.
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Rosé (singer)
Born
Rosé in Saint Laurent, Met Gala, September 2021
Rosé's first Met Gala look was a short black Saint Laurent dress by Anthony Vaccarello with an oversized white bow across the chest, and she walked in with Vaccarello himself. She and CL, attending the same year, were the first female K-pop idols at the event. The dress was restrained by Met standards, which was the point: it presented a K-pop star not as a costume act but as the face of a Paris house, a role Blackpink's members have kept playing for luxury fashion since.
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NewJeans
Born
NewJeans, "Attention" debut, July 2022
NewJeans arrived with no glossy concept costumes at all. The "Attention" video and stages traded in arm warmers, butterfly clips, side braids and sports jerseys reworked into cropped tops with cut-outs, a deeply Y2K look shaped by creative director Min Hee-jin. Paired with long, natural hair and minimal makeup, it read as what a stylish teenager might actually wear, and it pushed K-pop styling away from stage armor toward everyday clothes fans could copy straight from their closets.
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BLACKPINK
Born
Blackpink, cheollik looks at Coachella, April 2023
Headlining Coachella as the first K-pop girl group to do so, Blackpink took the stage on the first weekend in black outfits based on the cheollik, a jacket worn by military officials from the Goryeo to the Joseon eras. They were custom-made by the traditional dressmaker Kumdanje with the pattern brand OUWR. Where "How You Like That" softened hanbok into pop color, this went for history and severity, and it did so on one of the biggest festival stages in the world rather than in a video.
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Jennie (singer)
Born
Jennie in archive Chanel, Met Gala, May 2023
For her first Met Gala, held in honor of Karl Lagerfeld, Jennie wore full Chanel: a look the house's team recreated for her from Lagerfeld's fall 1990 ready-to-wear collection. A longtime Chanel ambassador, nicknamed "Human Chanel" by fans, she chose the archive over a new runway piece, a tribute that read as fashion literacy rather than celebrity dressing. It is the clearest example of a K-pop ambassador being treated by a heritage house as part of its own story.
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Stray Kids
Born
Stray Kids in Tommy Hilfiger, Met Gala, May 2024
All eight members made their Met Gala debut together in custom Tommy Hilfiger, arriving in what looked like plain wool peacoats before opening them to show linings patterned with the American flag. Underneath, each wore his own tailoring, from Bang Chan's navy three-piece with red piping to Felix's flower-embroidered silk suit. A whole K-pop group dressed by one house on fashion's biggest night was new, and the reveal turned a menswear ambassadorship into real red carpet theater.
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G-Dragon
Born
G-Dragon, Chanel womenswear and skirted pants, 2023 to 2025
The first Asian man to become a Chanel ambassador, G-Dragon has spent his comeback era wearing the house's womenswear as if it were cut for him: a pink tweed jacket with a bold brooch at the Cruise 2024/25 show in Hong Kong, frilled and V-collar blouses, sheer layers under fitted knit vests, and skirted pants in the "Too Bad" video. His pastel tweed jacket became a fashion sensation in Korea, and even his military-style slippers sold out. Behind his style for years has been Gee Eun, the longtime Big Bang stylist with whom he founded the label Peaceminusone. No idol has done more to make gender-fluid dressing look like plain good taste.
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