멀티매거진 for your fashion fetish…
What did you do for Halloween? And what did you go as? Although Halloween isn't really a part of Korean culture, and isn't much of a fit with it until recently, either, most people do know what it is, even if most people aren't dressing up as naughty nurses or suckling succubi. And even at the few official Halloween parties that one can find around Seoul, outside of Hongdae, Itaewon, or Apkujeong, there aren't many people who actually bother to dress up.
That's why, when a friend invited me to a Yonsei-student-sponsored Halloween party thrown by a campus organization called the Mentors' Club, which focuses on fostering friendships between Koreans and foreigners, I simply had to go. I had heard that the MTV-sponsored party at the Circle club had essentially no one dressed up, and this site wanted Halloween pictures of people in Seoul.
So my friend saddled up in her best "bad schoolgirl" best and we were off to the party, being thrown in Hongdae. And it was a good mix of people – Koreans, kyopos, and non-Koreans were all in the house, and nearly everyone was dressed up. My friend looked great in her bad girl best, mostly because she is such a "nice girl" and so far from that costume in real life.
할로윈날에 뭐했나요? 그리고 뭘로 했나요? 할로윈은 원래 한국에서는 낯선 문화이지만 사람들이 많이 알게 됐어요. 그리고 해마다 이태원, 홍대, 압구정동에서 할로위 파티 좀 하는 거예요. 그래도 할로윈 파티해도 한국인 손님들이 할로위 복장을 잘 안 입더라고요. 그래서 한국에서는 할로윈 어떻게 하는지 보야주기는 좀…그래요. 그냥 많이 안하죠.
근데 우리 친구가 연대 무슨 한국인/외국인 우정협회 뭐 그런 동아리의 멤버인데 (Mentors' Club) 진짜 할로윈 파티를 만들었어요. 그렇게 초대 받았는데 갈 수 밖에 없었죠? 물론 몇 가지 다른 공식 할로윈 파티들이 있기 있었는데 내 듣기로는 진짜 열심히 복장을 만들고 입고 간 한국사람들이 거의 없었다면서요. 많은 주로 외국인들한테 만든 개인 할로윈 파티 말고 요즘에도 서울에서는 막 재밌었던 할로윈 파티가 없었던 같아요.
그래서 친구랑 그 동아리의 홍대 클럽을 필리고 만든 파티에가기로 했어요. 그 친구는 '배드 스튜덴트"이란 컨셉으로 복장을 준비했고 (웃기는 이유는 그 친구는 좀 모범생이니까 상상도 못 한 모습였어요!) 파티로 간 거예요. 이 친구는 보통 때 얼마나 착하게 생기는지 알았으면 이 사진을 잘 감상 할 수 있을 거예요. 진짜 웃긴 거예요.
There were a lot of creative costumes – more than I thought there would be. There was also a costume contest, but the winners (a pair of energetic young ladies wearing traditional Korean dresses and going crazy on stage with the Korean flags – you had to be there) took off before we could get a shot of it. We did get some good stuff, though. For example, sexy (resident) aliens?
도착했을 때는 많은 재밌는 복장들이 있었네요. 생각보다. 많은 사람들이 재밌고 창조적으로 자기 룩을 만들었어요. 복장 대회 했는데 1등을 잡은 한복을 입고 응원하는 애국자들을 (그 컨셉이 맞았나?) 못 찍었어요. 근데 재밌는 복장들이 많았어요. 예를들어서…섹세 외(국)계인?
Here, we got two cool dudes representing for the hilarious "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" commercials. We've got them digested for you in a video below.
웃기는 Mac vs. PC로 나온 유명한 매킨토시 광고처럼 한 두 명. 이 웃기는 시리즈가 밑에 제공할꼐요.
Oooh! Fresh out of the shower! Naughty nurses – oh, my!
샤워에서 바로 나온 건셉? 음…멋쟁이? 그리고 미식축구 플레어? 오른 쪽에 섹시 간호사다. 뜨겁다!
That's the Japanese guy who won 2nd-place in the costume/dance contest, and he sure did grab the crowd's attention…as well as other things. Ahem.
여기 이 일본에서 온 친구가 복장 대회에서 2등을 잡았어요. 그리고 또 다른 걸…음…접았네요. ㅋㅋ 대단했어요!
Now here was an interesting costume: along with the cop, the girl was wearing what seemed like a "Rock, Paper, Scissors" slot machine, which seemed to be activated by putting in change, pulling down on the arm lever, and playing to see whether you won or lost. What a good idea – go to a party, make some money from your costume, and even get a little of the thrill of the wager.
좀 창조적인 건셉였네. 왼쪽에 경찰인 것같고 근데 오른 쪽에는 '가위바위보' 기계이네요. 동전을 놓고 오른 쪽 팔을 땡기면 가위바위보를 할 수 있어요. 똑똑하네! 파티 참석할 겸, 돈 벌겸, 돕ㄱ도 할 수 있는 거네요.
10 Responses for "In The City: A Hongdae Halloween!"
I love this blog! Where in the US are you? I'm in the US as well but like to see what the latest Korean fashions are. How do you get all these pictures if you live in the states?
Hi, Yoomz -
We're based in Korea, not the US, and we take all the pictures marked with our logo ourselves. We get all our pictures by going out into the Korean streets and getting them! Ain't that the best way? Thanks for coming and tell all your friends about us!
우리 미국에 있는 것아니라 한국에 와있어요. 모든 우리 로고로 표시된 사진들은 우리 사이트 스스로 찍은 거예요. 제일 좋은 방법이죠? 방문해주셔서 고맙고 친구들에계 우리 사이트에 대해서 꼭 알려주세요!
haha the guy wearing the leather outfit is a popular show star in japan …just visit youtube and type out " hard gay" which is the name of that character. .. very interesting and funny show ^^ enjoy
I just read through all the prior blog posts and am fascinated from how this site evolved from one focused feet/leg/shoe posts to one that discusses overall Seoul fashion trends. But I like them either way =). I'm a woman and I liked the campiness of the foot fetish posts. Hillarious.
One day I might share with you a photo of my ridiculous shoe collection. Being in the states I have access to higher quality brand name shoes for a lot less then in Korea and I don't discriminate. Ballet flats, stilettos, platform, wedges, slouchy boots, equestrian boots and etc…. I love them all!
Thanks for appreciating the campy and fun nature of the original content, which began as an experiment in seeing where the male gaze took me and my lens, all of which was enabled by my then-amazing switchover to digital from film.
Much of it was from my fascination with the fact that I could take pictures of whatever I wanted, as much as I wanted, and it was totally free! No developing costs, days spent waiting for film to come back and scans to go through, etc.
I'm glad you "got it", and that's why I decided to leave everything up, down to the first post, since I think the site's an interesting evolution and, if you excuse me getting all art theory for a minute, completely informed and made more interesting by the male gaze and the power of fetishization, both of which helped me develop my own photo content into my own interesting style. In other words, you can't have the kinds of pictures I have now without having started with the ultimate symbol of fetish – the foot – so this is, quite literally, "fashion from the ground up."
My idea was that you can't start with the whole without perfecting the ability to capture a part, which is actually much, much more difficult photographically. Go out and try to get beautiful shots of just FINGERS, for example, or BELTS. It's much harder than photographing entire people from a distance. Go and take pictures of beautiful fingers without letting the subject know – if you can do that, many of your photo skills will be honed to a T.
In any case, I am working hard to always push myself into different angles, exposures, lighting types, and other things to make for more interesting fashion photos and portraits. I hope to encourage the other content producers here to do the same. And I believe that the only way to produce content that is powerful, compelling, and something that somebody else would actually want to look at is to start with a love for the thing itself, a desire so strong that you want to document it with an obssessive tenacity. Otherwise, one is just faking the funk.
In a large sense, fashion is just fetish, anyway. The colorful baubles with which we adorn ourselves – pointy shoes, shiny bags, sparkling jewels, dangling accessories, fuzzy hats, or ticking timepieces – these are all fetishized, both in the societal and Freudian senses of the word. To fool ourselves into thinking that this is anything but the reality of the world today is to live in a state of denial and Puritanical fantasy.
And back to the "foot" – does the woman who pumices, prunes, and paints her feet, who stands in front of a mirror marveling at the line of her ankle and calf descending down into a 4-inch pair of Manolo Blahniks, who owns 40 pairs of just such shoes – how is she any less of a "fetishist" than the onlooker who simply appreciates all this from a distance, or even dares to acknowledge all this and simply take a picture? In the game of fetishized visual display, it takes two to tango; it's a game much more fun to play with others than in front of a mirror, alone.
In any case, that's all a long-winded way of saying "Thanks!" for just simply getting what this is all about – being able to acknowledge our common fetishes here for what they are: fun, fabulous, fantastic – and sometimes just quirkiness and camp.
Yoomz, you da woMAN, and it's because of readers like you that I keep on trucking.
Thanks for coming to the blog and for the words of encouragement.
Woah you just took me back to my liberal arts days and when I was taking anthropology and women's studies course at Wellesley College. Viva la artists! =)
Am definitely a fan of this site and expect me to drop more comments.
Also its funny. Being a Korean American a lot of women in the states always commented to me on how I'm always dressed up or how I always have mani's and pedi's. I always just shrugged it off and thought it was just something that was what I liked and appreciated. Looking nice and put together.
However, after my recent trip to Seoul this summer I realized that it wasn't a "Yoomz" thing, it was a "Korean" thing. Who knew that I could still be effected by a national/cultural phenom that was was happening on the other side of the globe! I'm sure having a Korean mother who always made sure I looked presentable and chic from a young age had a huge influence, but it was very nice to walk around Seoul and see everyone actually taking pride in their appearance. It wasn't a vanity thing so much as a "this is the proper thing to do" thing. Not seeing people walk around in their sweatpants was very refreshing =).
It's refreshing for about a week. After that, I want to be able to run to the corner store for some kimchi without feeling like I need stillettos, stockings, and the entire clinique makeup counter just to be acceptable. The dressing up actually annoys me because it's done without any regard for appropriateness ~ every time a woman steps outside she's expected to look like she's going to a Vogue cover shoot, even when she's taking out the trash or walking the dog.* And it's not right, and it's not refreshing. It's time consuming, wasteful, and burdensome to women. And boring to the eye, eventually. I really love seeing the people in Seoul who manage to be stylish and cool without looking like they're headed to the opera while they're just strolling around.
I would also argue that by and large it's not pride in appearance - it's a combination of vanity and social pressure. My Korean girlfriends are always well dressed in public and pay lots of attention to their accessories, but ALL of them complain in private about what an annoyance it is. But they all know that if they didn't they'd pay for it, sometimes even with their jobs. And what's the fun of putting on sweet skirts, makeup, and stockings when it's a requirement? That's what gets my goat - most women HAVE to wear high heels every day, regardless, if they want to not be ostracized.
Not to knock being coiffed, perfumed and dressed to the nines. That's cool. But let me go to work in slacks and flats if it's appropriate to the job and sometimes let me slip outside in my sweats to pick the mail without feeling like a felon.
*oops, retracted. There are no dogs in Seoul capable of walking under their own power. Proper Seoulites always carry their oversize hamster- er, toy dogs in a Louis Vuitton tote.
Woah obviously a touchy topic. It's cool rubber shoes. Some folks like dressing up every day, some folks don't. It takes all types to make this world go around. C'est la vie.
Fashion brings about strong opinions, right? I'm sure there's a lot of common ground here – you guys just live in different places, different grounds, now. After being required to wear all dem heels here, the feets hurt; but on the other hand, people here do look fabulous. We can all agree that there's a high price to pay for fashion, right?
And look at me – I just take pictures of it all. We're all coming at it from different angles, I'd say. Between the two of you, me, and this minor difference of opinion, the only weird one is really me and my camera!
i stumbled upon your site through r.o.k. blog site and read aout run in with the "fuzz".
your blogs are brutally honest, not to mention funny as hell.
fashion did not bring me here,it's your near perfect photos and comments.
looking foward to you future posts.
cheers.
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