While most K-Pop groups will bring whatever pretty and on trend onto their stages, there
are also a few that manage to maintain their personal touch in every performing costume
throughout various eras and fashion concepts.
While this doesn’t sound like anything difficult to pull off, it’s actually super hard to
do as presenting a style that people can immediately tell which group they are is like trying to
produce a signature song in overly saturated genres.
1.
Weeekly
Despite not coming from a big company, Weekly still manages to raise their popularity to
be among the top line of K-Pop gen4 idols thanks to not only the earworm beat of After
School but also the style that made up their signature image: colorful, fun and sporty.
To differentiate their fashion sense from the highteen, Y2K or the girl-crush-inspired
style that have been taking the industry by storm in recent years, Weeekly switched to
more casual and sporty styles to best portray the lively image of a girl group that always
brings joy to people.
Just like the name “Weeekly,” the performing outfits of the group are indeed fits that
everyone could incorporate into their daily style and wear them on any days, any weeks.
The most special thing about their signature fashion sense is that, though Weeekly’s
positioning image still falls on the girly end of the spectrum, the group don’t usually
wear skirts and dresses, especially the sexy ones like most other acts.
That’s why throughout four promotions, the most picked items of the groups were slightly
loose and school-friendly items like polo croptops, sweatpants, sweaters, and cute little
accessories like bucket hats, beret caps and beanies.
Out of all the fits that they brought onto the stages, probably the outfit set that best
represents the group’s style is this from the After School era.
If you pay close attention to their fits, you will see that Weeekly barely showed their
skin during this era.
Even when wearing croptops, they still wore protective gear underneath, mostly had on
baggy jeans, oversized tees, and the signature accessory of the group - colorful bucket hats.
2.
aespa
Completely different from Weeekly, aespa’s stylists have always dressed them in sophisticated
designer clothes, tailor-made for each member and highlighted by the strong vibe of sci-fi
movies.
Famous as the most invested act in all time of SM Entertainment, aespa not only receives
the most budget-exhausted concept to debut with but also the prettiest, most unique stage
costumes for every comeback.
Apparently the group has still made headlines for wearing such questionable clothes but
except for those once-in-a-while occasions, most of aepsa’s outfits were showered with
compliments.
Ever since the Black Mamba debut, the group already left people in awe with the special
fashion sense.
Instead of going for the commonly seen girl-crush style with tight badass clothes and items
from all the best luxury fashion houses, aespa opted for the fairy-inspired styles, pastel
dresses with lots of gems-embedded fringes and sparkling footwear.
The stage costumes throughout all following promotions of aespa, Forever, Next Level,
Savage and Dream Comes True, also remained that same fairy-inspired spirit with sophisticated,
tailor-made clothes and lots of bling bling elements.
The signature thing about their clothes is that, since SM Entertainment positions aespa
to be the girl group coming from another universe, or in other words, the world of the future,
the fashion sense of the group when not going for those soft, girly and utopia fits were
the ones heavily inspired by the dystopian style.
This switch to a bolder style of a dystopian world was most clearly seen through the Next
Level promotion where the members incorporated the racing sets, black gem-embedded dresses
and especially these Mars aboriginal-esque costumes into their performing outfits.
Among the huge cribe of well-invested outfits that SM Entertainment tailor-made for aespa,
the most signature ones were still those that were created based on the individual super
power of each member in the teaser photos in the Savage era.
As revealed by aespa’s stylists Kim Wook in one interview with W Korea, the “Easter
egg” he left when working on the signature outfits of Savage is that the outfit of each
member represented their own symbol and own theories about individual role in the KWANGYA
universe.
Looking closely at the costumes, you will see all the fits were meticulously planned
and created to portray the “black hole” symbol of Giselle, “storm” of Winter,
“spark” of Karina and “code” of Ningning.
Moreover, because aespa in KWANGYA universe are real fighters, Kin Wook also revealed
that he had expressed the visual standing on the battlefield through the combination
between calm colors and neat, strong outfits.
For the accessories, Kim Wook only chose futuristic items made out of silver and metalic to represent
the “fighters” vibe in the Utopian world.
3.
Orange Caramel
Debuting as a sub-unit of the legendary girl group After School, Orange Caramel decided
to blow a new breeze into the inherently sexy and empowered image of After School by going
for the quirkiest and most out-of-this-world concept on Earth.
To best portray such a playful spirit as well as to escape the overwhelming reputation of
After School, Orange Caramel had always gone for some most eccentric stage costumes, cosplaying
from the Gangnam-version Cinderella, the innocent version of Carnival dancers, sexy Shanghai
girls and the most iconic of all time, the mermaid sushies that were entertainingly portrayed
through the Catellena hit.
Because all the fits that Orange Caramel brought onto the screen were so queer, people found
it even more surprisng to see the girls wore the exact same fits to perform on the national
TV channels.
While most acts back then tried to either look irresistibly cute or crazily sexy, Orange
Caramel always looked as if they were only there to enjoy themselves, entertain fans
and not give a what about the perfect idol figure that others spent years to preserve.
They even tried their best to make those funny costumes stand out by opting for the most
abnormal makeup looks, for example this one with the purple eyebrows, green eyeshadows,
heavy pink blushes yet the extremely nude lipstick, extra hairstyle that might sometimes
be replaced by peculiar wigs, and some hair accessories that you could have just seen
in anime.
Remember how I’ve said earlier that Catallena was the most iconic hit of Orange Caramel?
Because the act’s music was always bizarre, people could totally expect the funny rhythm
of the song.
However, what they didn’t see coming were that Orange Caramel used all sorts of funny
head accessories for their stage costumes, from the plates of cupcake, the fish bone
wrapped around by a lettuce and a plate of realistic sushies, which ended up fascinating
many people for their toy-ish images in the ocean of groups chasing the oversaturated
girly and sexy concepts.
4.
Crayon Pop
Besides Orange Caramel, there was also another girl group whose image could never be mimicked
by any other acts because of their admirable courage to incorporate a handful of entertaining
headwears, especially the rice-cooker-esque helmets, to the stage costumes of extreme
quirkiness.
If you’re a newbie in K-Pop, you’ve probably never heard of Crayon Pop and that totally
made sense because at first, the girls were unfortunately a nugu group coming from a small
company.
However, thanks to the determination and dedication to making it big in the bloody competitive
K-Pop industry, Crayon Pop finally managed to get their name known through the playful
megahit Bar Bar Bar.
Since it was impossible to go head-to-head with the top-notch music production of big
companies, the girls decided to stand out outfit-wise and guess what, their reputation
went through the roof overnight.
Thanks to the colorful gym outfits layered outside the long black tights and especially
their signature image - the rice-cooker-esque helmet of matching colors, Crayon Pop quickly
garnered attention for the unique fashion sense.
Their images with such entertaining helmets were so loved that they stuck with this item
throughout the Bar Bar Bar promotion and even for the Winter song Lonely Christmas, the
girls still brought these helmets up to mix with the Christmas-tree dress.
As always wearing mere helmets could bore people out, the girls changed up the vibe
a bit by decorating horns, stars and reindeers onto the items, making them the one and only
girl group whose signature stage costume always went hand in hand with rice-cooker-esque helmets.
5.
IZ*ONE
As the girl crush concept started to take over the K-Pop industry since 2016 and literally
everyone did that, IZ*ONE had decided to go a different path and opted for the elegant,
princess-inspired concept throughout their career.
It was also for such a positioning that the stage costumes of IZ*ONE are always some of
the most graceful and glittering outfits in K-Pop.
Ever since their debut song La Vie en Rose, the act had already created the impression
that they were princesses stepping straight out of the fairytale world.
However, that didn’t necessarily mean that their costumes were always predictable with
puffy girly long dresses because throughout IZ*ONE promotions, their stylists had proven
that the girls could still remain graceful and luxurious with the mix-and-matches of
various outfits.
For example, while the La Vie en Rose era’s highlight was a range of elegant dresses,
silky blouses, girly pearl accessories and high heels, IZ*ONE tried to keep up the same
luxurious, lady-like spirit yet not bore people out by gradually adding a more modern touch
into their costumes for the following eras.
Besides puff-sleeve blouses and flattering dresses, the girls also incorporated suit
dresses, fancier outfits like these Dolce&Gabbana-esque costumes, and even the whole set of suits
like in this Fiesta stage.
However, because the positioning image of IZ*ONE was still about portraying the girly
and fancy vibe, those stiff formal suits were harmonized by the pastel colors and elegant
hairstyles.
6.
WJSN
Despite the official group name being “Cosmic Girls,” their stage costumes were surprisingly
down to Earth.
You know how we often find it hard to bring a certain set of idols on stage out to real
life since everything was too extra and flamboyant?
That rarely happened to fans of WJSN because whenever the girls appeared on stage, their
signature outfits throughout most eras were pleated skirts, croptops, blouses, and student
vests.
The most interesting thing about WJSN's performance costumes is that fans can completely buy or
sew the exact same clothes to wear to school, to work or to go out with friends without
looking too extra.
That’s why WJSN's stage costumes are often praised for being highly applicable.
So, which group do you think has the most signature outfits?
Are there any other groups with equally unique fashion sense that I forgot to mention?
Comment down below to share your thoughts with us.
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