CHARLET DUBOC: Welcome to "Fashion Week International,"
the show that reports on the most fabulous fashion weeks in
the world and the culture and politics behind them.
This time we're in North Korea's fun Southern cousin
for Seoul fashion week.
It's 3:00 AM on a Monday night and I'm shopping and so is
everybody else.
Everything you can see around here is open.
Nobody's drunk, nothing's weird.
It's the same as during the day, it's just dark.
This is an underground station, but as you can see it
also takes you to the underground shopping center.
It doesn't feel real.
It's like a weird,
post-apocalyptic underground world.
Why is it open?
Why aren't people in bed?
We're definitely going to come back at a more civil hour.
I was in Seoul for fashion week.
Seoul is a megatropolis.
A sprawling mass of perfect order, and the most
technologically advanced city in the world.
The curious antics of South Korea's Northern neighbor has
demanded much of the world's attention
over the last 40 years.
But during that time, South Korea has quietly been getting
on with becoming the center of Asian pop culture.
To the point where K-pop is poised to explode over the
face of the world in a blitz of highly choreographed
titillation.
The look here it is all about flawless perfection, whilst
the subtext seems to be x-rated filth.
And I was here to find out just how far people were
willing or expected to go in pursuit of perfection.
Fashion week is being held at the 1988 Olympic Village,
across town from the now well-known
Gangnam area of Seoul.
This gave me a chance to try and navigate my way there
through the super-techie metro system.
You're just bombarded with advertising
and interactive stuff.
So while you're waiting for the train, you can engage with
this thing--
a virtual fitting room.
Everyone would agree that I'm already unique and casual, so
I'm going to try chic and modern.
I'm going to choose this sexy office lady here.
And then I take the picture.
Wow.
It was just like the scene in "Clueless." The end result is
a bit disappointing, I'm going to be honest.
The train is coming.
At some of the other places we visited on this show, the
actual fashion seemed to be an afterthought
to the event itself.
Here, the fashion was everything and was to be taken
very seriously--
on the catwalk, and in the queue.
Outside the fashion week, I felt positively underdressed.
In this series, I'd not yet been to a place where the kids
took their outfits so seriously.
Or indeed, seen so many scrupulously crafted
looks in one place.
How would you describe your own personal style?
[SPEAKING KOREAN]
CHARLET DUBOC: And it didn't end there.
I spotted luminous pixies, hipster [INAUDIBLE], fay time
travelers, and even a punk.
This is my new friend.
You're the first person we've seen in Seoul that has a
vaguely punk look.
Do you dress this way because you listen to punk music, or
do you dress this way because you like punk fashion?
[SPEAKING KOREAN]
CHARLET DUBOC: Where I come from, if people dress like
you, it means that they follow a punk rock lifestyle.
And they believe in a kind of
anti-establishment way of life.
[SPEAKING KOREAN]
CHARLET DUBOC: It's been lovely talking to you.
You're the most polite punk I've every met.
You're a gentleman.
The array of well-honed looks may give the impression of
alternative lifestyles.
But the punk himself admitted that his look
was only skin deep.
To find out more, I went to see a guy called Donald King,
aka, "the loneliest rockabilly punk in the world." I found
him at his secret barber shop, hidden in the
back streets of Seoul.
He looks like a terrifying butcher--
"Sweeney Todd."
[SPEAKING KOREAN]
DONALD KING: Thank you.
[SPEAKING KOREAN]
CHARLET DUBOC: OK.
Would you say it's difficult to be a punk and maintain a
punk scene?
[SPEAKING KOREAN]
CHARLET DUBOC: What do you think of the mainstream Korean
fashion industry in general?
[SPEAKING KOREAN]
CHARLET DUBOC: K-pop, that's what Korea's best known for
culturally at the moment.
How does that make you feel?
[SPEAKING KOREAN]
CHARLET DUBOC: I left Don, the lonely punk, with his heart
hurting from the sound of unstoppable K-pop.
Hanryu, or Korean wave, refers to all South Korean popular
entertainment.
The term was coined by Chinese journalists taking note of the
fast-growing popularity of Korean pop culture in China.
Thanks mainly to the internet, which South
Korea pretty much rules.
K-pop accounts for around 3.8 billion dollars worth of the
country's economy.
So whilst the girls and boys might look like they're at it
like rabbits, they're very much investments to be
protected from the wrong kind of attention.
We went to meet Ha Sang Beg, celebrity designer and boy
band stylist.
He's somewhat of a controversial figure on the
Korean fashion scene, which he seems to revel in.
You need only go to his website to see why.
Ha Sang has dabbled in many fashion taboos.
HA SANG BEG: I'm inspired by the fetish, tie-up bondage.
The helmet thing is breath control inspired.
CHARLET DUBOC: But it was after his attempt to bring
some androgyny into the world of K-pop that shit
really hit the fan.
HA SANG BEG: This is SHINee's new album called "Sherlock."
This is sort of ethnic multicultural.
CHARLET DUBOC: Yeah, it's not what I would
associate with K-pop.
It's obviously like an evolution.
HA SANG BEG: OK, thank you.
Is it--
CHARLET DUBOC: It's cool, yeah.
HA SANG BEG: Good?
CHARLET DUBOC: It's classy.
HA SANG BEG: I'm glad.
This a member called [INAUDIBLE].
A lot of fans, in their minds he's still like
a good little boy.
CHARLET DUBOC: And this is quite sexual.
HA SANG BEG: Yeah.
After this, the fan from Turkey said I really
want to kill you.
CHARLET DUBOC: You've ruined his innocence.
HA SANG BEG: How dare you do this?
Nasty, nasty.
It was so shocking to me.
It was a very radical reaction.
CHARLET DUBOC: Do the fans email you personally?
HA SANG BEG: Yes.
Oh, please, make them wear the suit.
One of those stage acts was a very back revealing racerback.
And then, what?
CHARLET DUBOC: They thought it was rude?
HA SANG BEG: I don't know.
The girls having fantasy, I guess.
CHARLET DUBOC: How do they know that it's not the boys
who have the control?
I mean, how much control do the boys have?
I was keen to find out just how sheltered these boys were.
So we took up the chance to partake in a press junket for
an upcoming boy band.
We've come up to the North of Seoul, because we've been
given this rare opportunity to snatch five minutes with one
of the hottest K-pop bands in Korea at the moment.
They're called Infinite, they're a seven-piece.
They're all babes about half my age.
And hopefully they can explain some of their K-pop
phenomenon.
[SPEAKING KOREAN]
CHARLET DUBOC: I've never done one of these, and was
immediately intimidated by the strange interview format.
I felt like I was about to interview a school photo.
So I'm basically an alien here.
What is K-pop?
[SPEAKING KOREAN]
CHARLET DUBOC: Do any of you have lucky girlfriends?
CHARLET DUBOC: Are you looking for girlfriends?
[SPEAKING KOREAN]
CHARLET DUBOC: How would your ideal girlfriend dress?
[SPEAKING KOREAN]
CHARLET DUBOC: Not too sexy, not too much flesh?
[SPEAKING KOREAN]
CHARLET DUBOC: Who gets the most girls?
[SPEAKING KOREAN]
CHARLET DUBOC: What was that?
[SPEAKING KOREAN]
CHARLET DUBOC: Suddenly, one of their team silently stepped
in and ended the interview and we were politely ushered out.
As K-pop makes a grab for the world, will it
like what it finds?
The West loves success, but also failure and scandal in
equal measure.
And it's hard to tell whether these perfect boys and girls
have what it takes underneath to survive the scrutiny.
It seemed curious that even the very mention of girls was
enough to end the interview with Infinite.
Sex in Seoul is a tricky subject.
Basically, until now, if you're young you either find a
dark alley or check yourselves into a sex motel.
Don't even think about taking your boyfriend home unless you
want to watch your father tearfully impale
himself on a chopstick.
Here's where fashion comes to the rescue again.
Slowly, social sexual
conventions are being softened.
How?
Through a rising trend for couples to
wear matching underwear.
Matching couples has been big on the scene for some time,
but now these couples want to match all the way down.
This shop sells matching guy and girl underwear.
Spirit of adventure.
It's really weird.
I mean, if my boyfriend and I wore matching underwear in
England, we'd be a laughingstock.
[SPEAKING KOREAN]
CHARLET DUBOC: Why do you think it became a trend?
What do people like about it?
[SPEAKING KOREAN]
CHARLET DUBOC: We decided to test this new trend by
grabbing a couple for a spot of market research.
So I've cornered this poor, really cute couple.
Where were you heading before we so rudely accosted you?
[SPEAKING KOREAN]
CHARLET DUBOC: What is that, exactly?
[SPEAKING KOREAN]
CHARLET DUBOC: Cool.
So what we're going to do is like a kind of silly game.
I'm going to get you each to pick your favorite thing that
you'd like to match with each other and you're not going to
show each other.
And then we're going to see if you pick the same thing.
Have a look.
How long have you guys been together?
[SPEAKING KOREAN]
CHARLET DUBOC: So do you think it's nearly time to get some
matching underwear?
[SPEAKING KOREAN]
CHARLET DUBOC: What's his
personality like, your boyfriend?
[SPEAKING KOREAN]
CHARLET DUBOC: Make sure he's not looking.
Now, on three--
one, two, three.
I can't believe you picked the same things.
You're going to think we set this up, but
I promise we didn't.
Are you surprised?
[SPEAKING KOREAN]
CHARLET DUBOC: Walking down the street together knowing
that you both have this matching set on, how would
that make you feel?
[SPEAKING KOREAN]
CHARLET DUBOC: That's so charming, I'm going to cry.
I think you'd better get married, guys.
That's pretty much as good as it gets, let's face it.
Off into the sunset to bang like rabbits.
Just call me cupid.
Hi!
Are you a band?
FEMALE SPEAKER: No.
FEMALE SPEAKER: Thank you.
CHARLET DUBOC: What was that?
That was a mega communication fail, but they thought it was
hysterical.
Back at fashion week, and I was cutting somewhat of a
lonely figure.
Maybe the cool kids were put-off by the fact that I
only wore one jacket, that on reflection looks slightly too
homeless for their tastes.
That was until a rather demure girl next to me started to
speak to me.
She was a fashion student, but one with a very different
background to most of the other kids here.
It turns out she was born in North Korea and smuggled into
the South as a child.
[SPEAKING KOREAN]
CHARLET DUBOC: But because you came here so young, do you
feel South Korean or North Korean, or a mixture?
[SPEAKING KOREAN]
CHARLET DUBOC: Do you ever think about how things might
be different if your family hadn't moved?
[SPEAKING KOREAN]
CHARLET DUBOC: So here in South Korea, girls really can
do whatever they want to look a certain way.
And there's a big trend at the moment for people having
facial surgery.
What do you think about the trend for plastic surgery?
[SPEAKING KOREAN]
CHARLET DUBOC: A lot of the girls here are having plastic
surgery to change the way they look.
How do you feel about that?
[SPEAKING KOREAN]
CHARLET DUBOC: Double eyelid surgery is the practice of
creating a crease in the eyelid, that many South Korean
women don't naturally have, to make the
eyes rounder and wider.
Having it done here is as commonplace as
going to the dentist.
[SPEAKING KOREAN]
CHARLET DUBOC: Have you been able to have anything done?
[SPEAKING KOREAN]
CHARLET DUBOC: If the fashion scene was making moves away
from this trend, I wanted to see what the new generation of
teenyboppers thought about it.
FEMALE SPEAKER: One, two, three, four,
five, six, seven, eight.
One, two, three, four, five.
CHARLET DUBOC: They're a very well-behaved hip-hop band.
Do you have very distinctive personalities?
[SPEAKING KOREAN]
CHARLET DUBOC: How do you feel about being given that label?
[SPEAKING KOREAN]
CHARLET DUBOC: So it's more about empowering women than
attracting men?
[SPEAKING KOREAN]
CHARLET DUBOC: How would you girls define Korean beauty?
What are the beauty ideals that Korean girls aspire to?
[SPEAKING KOREAN]
CHARLET DUBOC: And what do you girls think about that?
[SPEAKING KOREAN]
CHARLET DUBOC: I hadn't expected to hear such concrete
confirmation that the ideal look is that of Westerners.
Or at the very least, a stereotypical vision of a
Western face.
South Korea has overtaken Brazil as the plastic surgery
capital of the world, with the highest number of surgeries
performed per capita.
About one in five women have undergone some sort of
cosmetic procedure, which have become popular graduation
gifts for young South Korean girls from their parents.
There was only one last place to go in
pursuit of this story.
So as we know, plastic surgery is insanely
popular in South Korea.
So we've come to a district of Seoul where there are
literally hundreds of clinics.
We've been invited by these two lovely doctors to come and
witness some procedures today that sort of come under this
blanket term "Westernization."
It's really chill.
It's very clean.
Quite sort of holistic, almost.
And the two main surgeons, they kind of remind you of
"Nip/Tuck" guys, they're like cool cats.
[SPEAKING KOREAN]
CHARLET DUBOC: So doctor--
DR. SEO: Yes?
CHARLET DUBOC: What's wrong with me?
DR. SEO: Your problem?
CHARLET DUBOC: Yeah.
DR. SEO: Oh, there is no problem.
You are very beautiful.
[SPEAKING KOREAN]
HUANG SA: My name is Huang Sa, I like the foreigners'
characteristics, such like yours.
CHARLET DUBOC: Like me?
HUANG SA: Yeah.
It is very, very beautiful.
[SPEAKING KOREAN]
CHARLET DUBOC: And are you happy with the results?
HUANG SA: Really, really happy and exciting.
[SPEAKING KOREAN]
CHARLET DUBOC: What about your parents or your grandparents?
Do they feel the same?
[SPEAKING KOREAN]
CHARLET DUBOC: How much of it is important for you
personally to feel beautiful, and how much of it is
important to how the rest of Chinese society sees you and
treats you?
[SPEAKING KOREAN]
CHARLET DUBOC: You look beautiful, I think.
Because it's different.
HUANG SA: Oh, different?
CHARLET DUBOC: You don't look like me or my friends, so
that's exciting for me.
You know?
HUANG SA: Yeah, I know.
CHARLET DUBOC: So you should be very happy.
HUANG SA: Thank you.
CHARLET DUBOC: She was like, what?
I look different from you.
Because the whole idea is that she wants my sort of look.
And I didn't realize at the time until someone told me
afterwards that me saying that to her actually really
disappointed her.
I just feel a bit bad.
I feel like I need to go and tell her, yeah, yeah, you look
exactly like me.
But that's not how I feel, because I
like her unique look.
But that's just interesting that
that's how it came across.
[SPEAKING KOREAN]
CHARLET DUBOC: One of the girls at the fashion week said
that having surgery done was no different to choosing what
dress to wear that day, or what makeup to wear that day.
But makeup and a change of clothes aren't quite as
invasive as this.
If this work is so prolific in Korea, do you think that it
could possibly say something about the state of Korean
society or the psyche of the women here?
[SPEAKING KOREAN]
CHARLET DUBOC: Even though it's not real, they still
believe they can create fortune by having surgery?
[SPEAKING KOREAN]
[CRYING]
[SPEAKING KOREAN]
CHARLET DUBOC: Is there a right age, psychologically,
that a girl should be to be ready to make a
decision like that?
[SPEAKING KOREAN]
CHARLET DUBOC: Do women ever come asking you for surgery
for the wrong reasons?
[SPEAKING KOREAN]
CHARLET DUBOC: I still think it's a little bit more extreme
than just your choice of lipstick or how
much mascara you wear.
Because, I mean, well, you can see for yourself.
Fashion week has distanced himself from K-pop culture,
staying very much in the international
high fashion vein.
During our time backstage, we've met many people who
wanted to reverse the trend of enhanced perfection, and the
seeds of dissent are starting to grow.
Those who champion natural beauty have presented an
argument that is hard to ignore.
Think about it.
A girl changes her face and meets the boy of her dreams.
Maybe he's had some work done, too.
They fall in love, get married, succeed at work, and
then settle down to have a family.
But on the day their first child is born, the secrets of
their past come flooding back.