More than just music

While K-pop is considered a music genre, K-pop isn’t just music. Everything K-pop idols do, is considered K-pop. From the way they dress to the way they talk. While you can listen to just the music on Spotify, it won’t give you the full experience. To get the full experience you need to see the music video, the dance, the album art, the clothes, the make-up, the photoshoot. Posters are a good example of this.

Every comebackEvery time a K-pop artist releases a new album, mini album or song, this is called a comeback. Again this is a Korean-English word that slightly changed its meaning in Korean. consists of multiple big photoshoots, from solo shoots of the idols to group photos. And every album includes one (or multiple) posters of these shoots.

Everything in the poster is a part of the (literal) perfect picture, with one of the main points in the poster being the clothes the idols wear. Korea focuses a lot on appearances, way more than people tend to do in, for example, the Netherlands. This entails both the way you look and the brands you wear. The better you look, with the more expensive brands, the higher your (perceived) social status. Within K-pop this means that all idols wear expensive brands and extravagant pieces all the time. This BTS poster shows this very well. While all members are wearing expensive clothing, I want to highlight the shirt that Jhope (first person from the right) is wearing. His shirt is the Dolce & Gabbana Women’s pink crystal Star ruffled blouse, worth USD 2160.