Day 10 (8.22)- Gangnam Style
We paid a visit to the Gangnam district, essentially the 5th Ave of Seoul. There are expensive shopping spots, expensive food, and of course, expensive outfits on all the people in town. When I embarked on this trip, I made it a mission to document as much of the street fashion I could to see how Korean’s handle fashion differently or similarly to the US. The thing about Seoul, is that everyone here dresses with an air of simplicity that is quite different than us ostentatious Americans. Instead of loud prints and gaudy accessories, Korean women are much more on the side of minimalism, often dressing with no more than 2 colors in an outfit.
As you can see, prints can definitely be applied, but they’re used quite sparingly with complimentary single-color clothing items in conjunction. Even color, as I mentioned never seems to be out of place. You won’t see any women on the subway wearing pink, purple, green, and yellow in the same outfit. Tackiness is not the Seoulite’s forte. K-pop stars? They’re dressed more like Americans with ostentatious outfits. A true Seoulite dresses to impress, but also doesn’t take their fashion TOO seriously….they’ve got to leave room for a little bit of fun.
Bright colors paired with neutral ones….
Patterned shirts and skirts (stripes unanimously being most popular) paired with more neutral tops and bottoms…
A chance to match a billboard in the subway station while seeing off a friend…
Finally, I’ve noticed there are two main fashion styles in Korea that encompass most of these trends.
Dress-to-impress (business edition)
and Dress-to-impress (street addition)
The goal? To look stylish, but by different means. The former is much more commonly-seen amongst working women, college-grads in their late 20s-30s, and dressing women around the cushier districts like Gangnam. It’s similar to business-casual in the States, but with staples being more neutral colors, modest blouses, and flat or heeled shoes. The latter is high school and college-kid style, focusing more on color-blocking, layering for both modestly and style, tee-shirts paired with a more formal bottom like a skirt, and most importantly….brand-name or off-brand sneakers. The interesting part is that these styles are hard to categorize at times because they can be often interchangeable. A lot of times you’ll see women dressed more like this…
A dressy blouse= Business
A modest skirt that complements the more colorful top= Business or Street
And Keds= Street
What I’ve come to realize is that there is no fine line between business and casual as there is with the fashion in the US. American’s would define business-casual as a nice dress or a skirt with a blouse and formal shoes like heels or flats. Koreans could define it as much more arbitrary, with sneakers pairing with formal clothing to add a more street aspect to the style. In my last week of Seoul, I’ll surely take another look at all the street fashion to see exactly what Seoulites find stylish, and possibly how this relates to the culture and history of Korea.
