K-Pop Fashion Trend Report: Hip-Hop
The ubiquitous Hip-Hop fashion is almost indispensible in the world of K-Pop.
Not only do Hip-Hop artists don fashion that is apt of the genre, many artists in K-Pop simply wear Hip-Hop clothes regardless of their music genre or concepts.
Hip-Hop fashion, also known as urban fashion, had originated from African American youth culture in various parts of America back in the 1980s. Such a style is meant to express certain attitudes to hip hop culture in general. This fashion has evolved largely since its inception and has come to prove itself as a highly prominent fashion style worn by all cultures in today's society.
So very often, we see K-Pop stars wearing clothes that resemble elements of the Hip-Hop genre. In most recent times, this includes a long list of items like baggy clothes, snapback caps, high-top sneakers, bandanas and many more.
The very first appearances of Hip-Hop fashion is nonetheless by Seo Taiji and the boys, the successful pioneers of rock and R&B music in the South Korean music industry.
K-Pop culture presents very modernized versions of the Hip-Hop fashion style, mainly infusing this into their numerous dance-pop concepts.
To re-create hip-hop styles to render them a more trendy look in popular culture, baggy large shirts have since been revamped into cropped styles for girls and is perfect for summer time.
We see various interpretations of the Hip-hop fashion on popular K-Pop groups like Girls' Generation, EXO, T-ara and 2NE1.
Girls' Generation, 2013, "I Got A Boy" on KBS Music Bank
EXO, 2013, "Growl" on SBS Gayo Daejun
It is interesting to note, also, the regular appearances of baggy jerseys with numbers on them (both front or back). This is evident particularly on big groups like Girl’s Generation and EXO. It is especially suitable when the group has many members, enough to almost make up an entire sporting team.
Not only is going with such a sporty Hip-Hop look fresh and likeable, it seems to work towards the camaraderie of the whole group – making them seem as united and formidable as soccer teams.
Although still considered a fairly new fashion style, Hip-Hop fashion has a lot of potential. We see so many elements of Hip-Hop in mainstream fashion - so much so that it would be extremely hard to imagine the fashion scene without it.
