fashion nova king of me boot
charlet duboc: welcome to"fashion week international," the show that reports on themost fabulous fashion weeks in the world and the culture andpolitics behind them. this time we're in north korea'sfun southern cousin for seoul fashion week. it's 3:00 am on a monday nightand i'm shopping and so is everybody else. everything you can seearound here is open. nobody's drunk, nothing'sweird.
it's the same as during theday, it's just dark. this is an underground station,but as you can see it also takes you to theunderground 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 comeback at a more civil hour.
i was in seoul forfashion week. seoul is a megatropolis. a sprawling mass of perfectorder, and the most technologically advancedcity in the world. the curious antics of southkorea's northern neighbor has demanded much of theworld's attention over the last 40 years. but during that time, southkorea has quietly been getting on with becoming the centerof asian pop culture.
to the point where k-pop ispoised to explode over the face of the world in a blitzof highly choreographed titillation. the look here it is all aboutflawless perfection, whilst the subtext seems tobe x-rated filth. and i was here to find outjust how far people were willing or expected to go inpursuit of perfection. fashion week is being held atthe 1988 olympic village, across town from thenow well-known
gangnam area of seoul. this gave me a chance to tryand navigate my way there through the super-techiemetro system. you're just bombardedwith advertising and interactive stuff. so while you're waiting for thetrain, you can engage with this thing-- a virtual fitting room. everyone would agree that i'malready unique and casual, so
i'm going to try chicand modern. i'm going to choose thissexy 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'mgoing to be honest. the train is coming. at some of the other places wevisited on this show, the actual fashion seemed tobe an afterthought
to the event itself. here, the fashion was everythingand was to be taken very seriously-- on the catwalk, andin the queue. outside the fashion week, i feltpositively underdressed. in this series, i'd not yet beento a place where the kids took their outfitsso seriously. or indeed, seen so manyscrupulously crafted looks in one place.
how would you describe yourown personal style? [speaking korean] charlet duboc: and itdidn'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'veseen in seoul that has a vaguely punk look. do you dress this way becauseyou listen to punk music, or
do you dress this way becauseyou like punk fashion? charlet duboc: where i comefrom, if people dress like you, it means that they followa punk rock lifestyle. and they believe in a kind of anti-establishment way of life. charlet duboc: it's beenlovely talking to you. you're the most politepunk i've every met. you're a gentleman. the array of well-honed looksmay give the impression of
alternative lifestyles. but the punk himself admittedthat his look was only skin deep. to find out more, i went to seea guy called donald king, aka, "the loneliest rockabillypunk in the world." i found him at his secret barbershop, hidden in the back streets of seoul. he looks like a terrifyingbutcher-- "sweeney todd."
donald king: thank you. charlet duboc: ok. would you say it's difficultto be a punk and maintain a punk scene? charlet duboc: what do you thinkof the mainstream korean fashion industry in general? charlet duboc: k-pop, that'swhat korea's best known for culturally at the moment. how does that make you feel?
charlet duboc: i left don, thelonely punk, with his heart hurting from the soundof unstoppable k-pop. hanryu, or korean wave, refersto all south korean popular entertainment. the term was coined by chinesejournalists taking note of the fast-growing popularity ofkorean pop culture in china. thanks mainly to the internet,which south korea pretty much rules. k-pop accounts for around 3.8billion dollars worth of the
country's economy. so whilst the girls and boysmight look like they're at it like rabbits, they're verymuch investments to be protected from the wrongkind of attention. we went to meet ha sang beg,celebrity designer and boy band stylist. he's somewhat of a controversialfigure on the korean fashion scene, whichhe seems to revel in. you need only go to hiswebsite to see why.
ha sang has dabbled inmany fashion taboos. ha sang beg: i'm inspired bythe fetish, tie-up bondage. the helmet thing is breathcontrol inspired. charlet duboc: but it was afterhis attempt to bring some androgyny into the worldof k-pop that shit really hit the fan. ha sang beg: this is shinee'snew album called "sherlock." this is sort of ethnicmulticultural. charlet duboc: yeah, it'snot what i would
associate with k-pop. it's obviously likean evolution. ha sang beg: ok, thank you. is it-- charlet duboc: it'scool, 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 theirminds he's still like a good little boy. charlet duboc: and thisis quite sexual. ha sang beg: yeah. after this, the fan fromturkey said i really want to kill you. charlet duboc: you've ruinedhis innocence. ha sang beg: how dareyou do this? nasty, nasty.
it was so shocking to me. it was a very radicalreaction. charlet duboc: do the fansemail you personally? ha sang beg: yes. oh, please, make themwear the suit. one of those stage acts was avery back revealing racerback. and then, what? charlet duboc: they thoughtit was rude? ha sang beg: i don't know.
the girls having fantasy,i guess. charlet duboc: how do they knowthat it's not the boys who have the control? i mean, how much controldo the boys have? i was keen to find out just howsheltered these boys were. so we took up the chance topartake in a press junket for an upcoming boy band. we've come up to the north ofseoul, because we've been given this rare opportunity tosnatch five minutes with one
of the hottest k-pop bandsin korea at the moment. they're called infinite,they're a seven-piece. they're all babes abouthalf my age. and hopefully they can explainsome of their k-pop phenomenon. charlet duboc: i've never doneone of these, and was immediately intimidated by thestrange interview format. i felt like i was about tointerview a school photo. so i'm basicallyan alien here.
what is k-pop? charlet duboc: do any of youhave lucky girlfriends? charlet duboc: are you lookingfor girlfriends? charlet duboc: how would yourideal girlfriend dress? charlet duboc: not too sexy,not too much flesh? charlet duboc: who getsthe most girls? charlet duboc: what was that? charlet duboc: suddenly, one oftheir team silently stepped in and ended the interview andwe were politely ushered out.
as k-pop makes a grab forthe world, will it like what it finds? the west loves success, but alsofailure and scandal in equal measure. and it's hard to tell whetherthese perfect boys and girls have what it takes underneathto survive the scrutiny. it seemed curious that even thevery mention of girls was enough to end the interviewwith infinite. sex in seoul is atricky subject.
basically, until now, if you'reyoung you either find a dark alley or check yourselvesinto a sex motel. don't even think about takingyour boyfriend home unless you want to watch your fathertearfully impale himself on a chopstick. here's where fashion comesto the rescue again. slowly, social sexual conventions are being softened. how?
through a rising trendfor couples to wear matching underwear. matching couples has been bigon the scene for some time, but now these couples want tomatch all the way down. this shop sells matchingguy and girl underwear. spirit of adventure. it's really weird. i mean, if my boyfriend and iwore matching underwear in england, we'd be alaughingstock.
charlet duboc: why do youthink it became a trend? what do people like about it? charlet duboc: we decided totest this new trend by grabbing a couple for a spotof market research. so i've cornered this poor,really cute couple. where were you heading beforewe so rudely accosted you? charlet duboc: whatis that, exactly? charlet duboc: cool. so what we're going to do islike a kind of silly game.
i'm going to get you each topick your favorite thing that you'd like to match with eachother and you're not going to show each other. and then we're going to see ifyou pick the same thing. have a look. how long have you guysbeen together? charlet duboc: so do you thinkit's nearly time to get some matching underwear? charlet duboc: what's his
personality like, your boyfriend? charlet duboc: make surehe's not looking. now, on three-- one, two, three. i can't believe you pickedthe same things. you're going to thinkwe set this up, but i promise we didn't. are you surprised? charlet duboc: walking down thestreet together knowing
that you both have this matchingset on, how would that make you feel? charlet duboc: that's socharming, i'm going to cry. i think you'd betterget married, guys. that's pretty much as good asit gets, let's face it. off into the sunset tobang like rabbits. just call me cupid. hi! are you a band?
female speaker: no. female speaker: thank you. that was a mega communicationfail, but they thought it was hysterical. back at fashion week, and iwas cutting somewhat of a lonely figure. maybe the cool kids were put-offby the fact that i only wore one jacket, that onreflection looks slightly too homeless for their tastes.
that was until a rather demuregirl next to me started to speak to me. she was a fashion student, butone with a very different background to most ofthe other kids here. it turns out she was born innorth korea and smuggled into the south as a child. charlet duboc: but because youcame here so young, do you feel south korean or northkorean, or a mixture? charlet duboc: do you ever thinkabout how things might
be different if your familyhadn't moved? charlet duboc: so here in southkorea, girls really can do whatever they want tolook a certain way. and there's a big trend at themoment for people having facial surgery. what do you think about thetrend for plastic surgery? charlet duboc: a lot of thegirls here are having plastic surgery to change theway they look. how do you feel about that?
charlet duboc: double eyelidsurgery is the practice of creating a crease in the eyelid,that many south korean women don't naturallyhave, to make the eyes rounder and wider. having it done here isas commonplace as going to the dentist. charlet duboc: have you beenable to have anything done? charlet duboc: if the fashionscene was making moves away from this trend, i wanted to seewhat 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 verywell-behaved hip-hop band. do you have very distinctivepersonalities? charlet duboc: how do you feelabout being given that label? charlet duboc: so it's moreabout empowering women than attracting men?
charlet duboc: how would yougirls define korean beauty? what are the beauty ideals thatkorean girls aspire to? charlet duboc: and what do yougirls think about that? charlet duboc: i hadn't expectedto hear such concrete confirmation that the ideal lookis that of westerners. or at the very least, astereotypical vision of a western face. south korea has overtaken brazilas the plastic surgery capital of the world, with thehighest number of surgeries
performed per capita. about one in five women haveundergone some sort of cosmetic procedure, which havebecome popular graduation gifts for young south koreangirls from their parents. there was only one lastplace to go in pursuit of this story. so as we know, plasticsurgery is insanely popular in south korea. so we've come to a districtof seoul where there are
literally hundreds of clinics. we've been invited by these twolovely doctors to come and witness some procedures todaythat 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, theykind of remind you of "nip/tuck" guys, they'relike cool cats.
charlet duboc: so doctor-- dr. seo: yes? charlet duboc: what'swrong with me? dr. seo: your problem? charlet duboc: yeah. dr. seo: oh, thereis no problem. you are very beautiful. huang sa: my name is huang sa,i like the foreigners' characteristics, suchlike yours.
charlet duboc: like me? huang sa: yeah. it is very, very beautiful. charlet duboc: and are youhappy with the results? huang sa: really, reallyhappy and exciting. charlet duboc: what about yourparents or your grandparents? do they feel the same? charlet duboc: how much ofit is important for you personally to feel beautiful,and how much of it is
important to how the rest ofchinese society sees you and treats you? charlet duboc: you lookbeautiful, i think. because it's different. huang sa: oh, different? charlet duboc: you don't looklike me or my friends, so that's exciting for me. you know? huang sa: yeah, i know.
charlet duboc: so you shouldbe very happy. huang sa: thank you. charlet duboc: shewas like, what? i look different from you. because the whole idea is thatshe wants my sort of look. and i didn't realize at thetime until someone told me afterwards that me saying thatto her actually really disappointed her. i just feel a bit bad.
i feel like i need to go andtell her, yeah, yeah, you look exactly like me. but that's not howi feel, because i like her unique look. but that's just interestingthat that's how it came across. charlet duboc: one of the girlsat the fashion week said that having surgery done was nodifferent to choosing what dress to wear that day, or whatmakeup to wear that day.
but makeup and a change ofclothes aren't quite as invasive as this. if this work is so prolific inkorea, do you think that it could possibly say somethingabout the state of korean society or the psycheof the women here? charlet duboc: even thoughit's not real, they still believe they can create fortuneby having surgery? [crying] charlet duboc: is there a rightage, psychologically,
that a girl should be tobe ready to make a decision like that? charlet duboc: do women evercome asking you for surgery for the wrong reasons? charlet duboc: i still thinkit's a little bit more extreme than just your choiceof lipstick or how much mascara you wear. because, i mean, well, youcan see for yourself. fashion week has distancedhimself from k-pop culture,
staying very much inthe international high fashion vein. during our time backstage,we've met many people who wanted to reverse the trend ofenhanced perfection, and the seeds of dissent arestarting to grow. those who champion naturalbeauty have presented an argument that ishard to ignore. think about it. a girl changes her face andmeets the boy of her dreams.
maybe he's had somework done, too. they fall in love, get married,succeed at work, and then settle down tohave a family. but on the day their first childis born, the secrets of their past come flooding back.
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