K-pop has had a huge influence on fashion especially in Asia, much of the cosmetics, clothes, hair and accessory trends worn by K-pop stars are the most sought after by young listeners. South Korean fashion has become the topic of interest among the fashion world with many K-Pop stars becoming the faces of International design house. K-Pop is bring the Korean craze to making South Korea one of the world’s cultural powerhouses in music and fashion. As the country continue to export its influence the globe fashion brands are launching collection clothing worn by idols to cash on the immense pull of South Korean pop culture. As K-Pop continues to its influence will open the door to American Fashions and designers looking to enter the market as well as Koreans launch new fashion brands and unearth emerging young designers. K-Pop is a great how the relationship between music and fashion can flourish into big bucks if packaged properly.

Fashion Houses and K-Pop

•Luxury houses such as Louis Vuitton and Dior did placements in the country’s television dramas
•Chanel debuting its first fashion show in South Korea with 2015/16 Cruise collection in Seoul on May 4
•Gucci names South Korean actress Gianna Jun as the new face of its accessories ads campaigns.
•Calvin Klein, hires South Korean actor Kim Woo Bin to endorse the new 2015 Calvin Klein Infinite collection, featuring sleek automatic watches.
•LVMH is investing $80 Million in YG entertainment to expand in fashion luxury market

History of K-Pop

K-pop aka Korean pop is a fast growing genre musical genre originating in South Korea, the element of influence includes all genres of western “popular music” such asdance-pop, pop ballad, electronic, rock, metal, hip-hop music and R&B. K-pop goes back to 1885 when an American missionary, Henry Appenzeller started teaching American and British folk songs at a school. Many of the western songs are changed into Korean and are typically based on a popular Western melodies. The first K-Pop album was done in 1925 it was Yi Pungjin Sewol (This Tumultuous Time) by Park Chae-seon and Lee Ryu-saek. Many of the first pop songs were mixed traditional Korean music with Gospel music that American Evangelists introduced in the 1870s. This music was known as Enka in Japan, and later in Korea as Trot.

It wasn’t until the early 90’s K-pop producers began to experiment with new forms of western music which began the shift in the music industry of South Korea. Since early 2000’s K-pop overseas audience has been on the rise and with South Korean singer-songwriter, record producer PSY it is considered South Korea’s Greatest Export bringing in Billions. The song’s refrain “Oppan Gangnam Style” was entered into The Yale Book of Quotations as one of the most famous quotations of 2012. K-pop star Psy is labeled the “King of YouTube”for the video for his Gangnam Style video that hit two billion views.

K-Pop Critics and Global expansion

The spread of K-pop among teenagers and young adults of has become worldwide. It has brought the spotlight on South Korea” the Vice President of Peru Marisol Espinoza in February of 2013 gave an interview with South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency, where she voiced her desire for more South Korean companies to invest in her country and named K-pop as “one of the main factors that made Peruvian people wanting to get to know South Korea more”. President Barack Obama, one his visit in 2012 to South Korea made mention of the strong influences of social media networks in the digital age. Many critics of the genre still remaining doubtful the genre can even break into western pop music scene. Many critics of the music state the music is merely a copycat of western music, has to many manufactured characterizations, to shallow, use of out of date or non existing English, to much pre-packaging” of idol bands and songs produced for fast consumption, lacking originality and lyrics to many repeated song patterns and formats and remain to artificial because of the overuse of autotune.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, “Korea’s entertainment business is notoriously improvisational and unregulated. In-demand K-pop stars — many of whom are teenage ‘idols’ — have been known to rehearse and perform without sleep” so in 2014 , South Korea passed regulations on its music industry to protect underage K-pop stars from unhealthy labor practices and overtly sexualized performances.

K-Pop Business model and charts

K-Pop is seen as a business model and its used to promote Korean fashion, geographical interest, tourism as well as politics. Its sparking many of its fans from around the world to show interest in South Korea for tours. K-pop launched a whole industry of production houses, event management companies, music publishers, distribution companies as well as K-pop and Hallyu related merchandise and service providers. The genre itself uses a concept of Cultural technology, or CT. The concept was started by founder of the South Korean music label and talent agency S.M. Entertainment Lee Soo-man, K-pop is exporting with this 3 set process or what many call “extreme pre-packaging”. The genre is tightly controlled and is ran by only a handful of entertainment companies which include the top three S.M. Entertainment the largest of the all as well as YG Entertainment and JYP Entertainment.

The companies often come under fire because it often over works the artists and is very demanding and doesn’t allow mistakes and program the rookies to become multi-talent stars. The CT concept of global entertainment focuses on providing complete product and performances based solely on sensations rather than only music with the use of music, dance, fashion, shows, TV appearances and acting. K-pop has its own subculture that focuses on genre expressions with the use of Korean honorifics. Three important factors of K-Pop include debut dates, popularity of the artist as well as age. K-pop has both Boy and girl groups called idols or idol bands with Idol Bands there is a leader chosen based on age, personality and leadership. All Idol bands have a strict hierarchy with the leader being the bands rep who is also responsible for the group’s harmony. Every group has a Maknae (막내 this is the youngest member of the band and often the most popular.

All Idols are recruited the entertainment companies are responsible for recruiting, financing, training, marketing and publishing new artists as well as managing their activities and public relations often spending in excess of $400,000 USD to train and launch a new artist.

The three steps to the Cultural technology described by Lee Soo-man consists of the following:

(1) exporting cultural products; such as placing Korean singers in different countries.

(2) creating international collaborations

(3) globalizing the product by cooperating with musicians from different countries to create a global brand.

The K-pop industry is very serious about the creation of K-pop idols and the launch of new musicians.The journey to stardom for many K-Pop Idols all live together and start out around age 9 or 10, with tightly supervised trainees being taught English, Japanese and Chinese, dance and voice classes at night and live together while attending school. The idols do not make their debut until their brand and performances have been perfected.

Top K-pop music charts include the Korea K-Pop Hot 100 and the Gaon Singles Chart with some hitting the Oricon Albums Chart of Japan. In 2014 K-pop idols Exo became the third K-pop act to enter the Billboard 200 that year after 2NE1 and Girls’ Generation. Billboard in 2013 launched Billboard K-Town, an online magazine to cover K-pop music; artists, concerts, events, chart information and news. SXSW launced its K-Pop Night Out at SXSW in Austin, Texas with the group f(x) being the first K-pop group to perform at SXSW in 2013.

K-pop produces more than 60 boy and girl bands are produced each year.