Seoul Fashion Week

Filed as: Korea and Culture // Responses: 53

Simon was lucky enough to get press and backstage passes to Seoul Fashion Week. Here’s a short video of what he saw.

Ok, so this was my first Fashion Show ever. Like, ever. I remember watching a couple episodes of Fashion TV back in Canada when I was bored, and I remember thinking how boring those shows must be. I mean, sure, there is artistic merit in fashion, but whatever it is I don’t understand it. At all. I’d like to listen what the critics would say afterwards, how that dress that totally weirded me out was supposedly revolutionary, so on and so forth. So, even though I got to go to Seoul Fashion Week, I wasn’t really looking forward to it.

But I was wrong. In fact, I was really pleasantly surprised. We’ve both always been amazed at how fashionable Korea is, and we both feel like we’re better dressed now in Korea than we’ve ever been before, because of Korea’s awesome sense of fashion. Seriously! When we first came here we’d just go out in tees and baggy jeans. Korea made us feel…frumpy, not by saying anything directly to us or by giving us stink eye or anything rude. Everyone just is so well dressed here and we felt frumpy in comparison, and so we feel like we gotta try to put in a bit more effort. And so, when I went to the show I didn’t think of how weird all of the pieces were as I would have a few years ago watching Fashion TV. I was thinking about how freaking cool it all was and how much I’d want to be able to pull those looks off. Damn. Wish I could fit in it, though! Korean clothes don’t really fit me, as I’ve mentioned a while ago in our video for Korean Custom Tailors.

Jessica of SNSD, Hara of Kara, and GNA of...GNA, at Seoul Fashion Week

Jessica, G.NA, and Hara at Seoul Fashion Week

Anyhow, I got to see some celebrities there. Unfortunately, I’m not really good at recognizing them. Jessica from SNSD was in the Resurrection show. G.NA was the white haired model in Lie sang bong’s show. Funny story about G.NA: I went back stage and I saw her, and was right beside her, but I never thought of taping her or asking her any questions, because I had no clue who she was. Only after the show I was told that it was G.NA. Damn! She had too much makeup on! How was I supposed to recognize her? But it’s probably for the best. I probably would have said something like “Hey Gona. I mean, G.NA. I, err, made a video about your video and said you were scary. Awkward! So…do you…like stuff?” Yeah, that would have been great!

Even more awkward: backstage when G.NA was giving her interview to the weird guy with the massive green bowtie, I was pulled aside by my translator to do an interview with a girl I don’t know. Supposedly she was in a big Kpop band a while ago: S.E.S. I had no clue who she was, because that was before my time. So she’s standing in front of the camera and looking at me and waiting for me to ask my questions…but I had none. Ahh! I felt bad. Is there a Kpop crash course I can take so I can know the people of the past? Awkward!

I was lucky enough to be able to hang out with Michael Hurt of FeetManSeoul. He’s been doing fashion photography for a long time and knows his stuff. He was in that KBS show on Korean Blogs we were in a while ago. Anyhow, I’ve never done anything along these lines, so he was able to tell me about the etiquette, and he was also kind enough to get things sorted out for me when I had some issues with the registration process. My Korean isn’t up to snuff, and his is. So big thanks to him for helping me out, because without him I wouldn’t have been able to make this video.

Another thing: holy crap was everyone tall there! I mean, I’m 6’4, and I’m used to being a giant in Korea. But at Seoul Fashion Week there were large crowds of people who wanted to see the shows, but these weren’t normal people. They were all, from what I could tell, aspiring models. How could I tell? Because they were all tall and skinny, really fashionably dressed, and really freaking good looking. My guess as to why they were there: maybe they were hoping to get discovered? Or maybe models just love watching fashion shows in their spare time? I don’t know. I just remember thinking “why can’t I see the top of your head” and feeling ill at ease. I like being monstrously tall.

Ok, that’s it for now. I only went for two days: Tuesday and Thursday, and so I couldn’t get all of the shows. Still had to make Music Mondays and WTF Wednesdays! So I missed out on other celebs there. Sorry if you’re disappointed! One more thingL Also, I don’t think G.NA is 5’8. She was reallllllly small from where I was looking. Maybe it was in contrast to all the monster tall models around me. I don’t know. Also, some people have been asking for the music we make in our videos, so here’s the track for this video, if you’re interested. Martina made this one. It’s called, “Seoul Fashion Week.” Creative title, no?

Seoul Fashion Week by simonandmartina

  • http://twitter.com/karinachan @karinachan

    Which SES member did you see?

    • http://www.eatyourkimchi.com Eatyourkimchi

      I think her name was Bada? I'm not sure.

  • http://twitter.com/sw33tine @sw33tine

    the music is so amazing!! martina should do more music and make an album. seriously :) it totally suits the video.

  • Anonymous

    Eugene was from S.E.S too. I didn’t know who S.E.S was until Big Bang did a S.E.S I Love You performance at their first concert and live on radio (being adorable). SNSD also sang I Love You by S.E.S live on radio which you’d find on youtube if you’ve not seen it yet. They’re pretty old.

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  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Sanne-Tussch/100000541310341 Sanne Tussch

    ^_^ I don’t know how tall they really where but I think I wouldn’t notice that fact… Because of being used to very tall people none stop. Day in day out I have people around me of 2 meter or higher… But I do love that fashion video I love that skirt at 0,47 seconds :) I would so love to have that since the day I saw TOP with a skirt like that I fell in love :)

  • http://twitter.com/Sweetzule Sulli :D

    wow they all look so angry TT_TT like seriously……..

  • http://twitter.com/Soshiloveable Denise Tan 陈敏怡

    i thought models were always meant to be at least 175cm but sica is at 162cm XD guess being in the entertainment industry helps ^^ 

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Jessica-Crandall/1324534000 Jessica Crandall

    martina made the music for this vid?!? maaad skillz…..

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Kelly-Hall/764030511 Kelly Hall

    The red ribbon kinda animation at the end there looks like the one from Global.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001731662861 Tsukimi Maiko

    haha you really had no clue that was GNA?!.. well actually me too, its hard to tell cause she looks weird.. im not a fan of her but if you really did had an interview with her, you wouldnt need a translator cause she’s actually damn fluent in english

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_MR2WPFWW3RS3YNCGIWR3XBG6BI meanne

    Oooh!! love the clothes!^___^ Cool background music martina!  what songs did you use anyways?

  • Karina Bobusheva

    Wow, nice video & music!! )) the ending of the song (at 2.58) sounds really like Fort Minor – Believe me )) is it the song Martina used?? anyway, great outcome ))

  • http://twitter.com/clazziq 리나/Rina/Riina/Kasia

    Awesome. It was for real the very first fashion show i really felt inspired by. Korean sense of fashion is really great; I’ve never been interested in it before I got to know about k-pop industry – that’s meaningful, I guess :)

  • http://karisumagyaru.blogspot.com Kari Gyaru

    hahaha… i feel old that i know who S.E.S. is…. :p

    fun times! i’d love to go to a fashion show like that… i was surprised all the models were all korean! (nearly? i think i saw a white guy…) in Japan, even the Japanese designer use lots of foreign models…

  • http://shirinlove.tumblr.com/ Shirin Wamu

    I loved it , hope u can do the one from next year

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