chadchad of the day 5.1

leather biker jacket / vintage
leopard print tank top / Topman
hot pink jesus necklace / Burger & Fries
galaxy print trousers / no brand


For Day 4 of London Fashion Week, when I was photographing backstage at the Paul Bench SS12 show, I decided to do a tribute of sorts to the over styling ways of K-pop.  I'm starting to miss all the boy & girl bands of Korea these days now that I'm in London and not hearing M-BLAQ, miss A, SHINee and Girls Generation blasting in every store, bus and restaurant. The only things my outfit is missing for the full K-pop experience is excessive stud detailing on my jacket, a face full of BB cream & eye liner and a whole lot of hair product.  (ps. thanks to Anna from hapticblog.blogspot.com for the photo!)






2NE1 and G-dragon & T.O.P. are obvious choices for over-styling amazingness, but I wanted to include a few other boy & girl groups that people outside of Korea may not be familiar with.



Super-sized boy band Super Junior, who fluctuate in size from 8 to 13 members depending on who is currently drafted by the army or filming a movie/drama at the moment, are definitely over styled with mixed results. I can appreciate the excess & sugar pop colors of the images above, but there's almost nothing good about their outfits in the video below.  But that said, skip the boring 30 second intro, close your eyes and enjoy the 'bwara Mr. Simple, Simple, geudaeneun geudaeneun geudaero meotjyeo' cheesiness that is K-pop.





There's something very ABBA or Ace of Base about this Hot Summer song by f(x), another fun K-pop girl group. I especially love the obviously tom-boyish Amber and her little English rap around 2/3rds of the way in. And a pink army tank? Amazing.



I'm loving that this video by D-NA was shot in one of my old Seoul haunts, Club Mansion in Hongdae, where my friend Sarah used to throw some crazy fun White Noize parties and where I saw DJ's like Kingdom play.  But the very best thing about K-pop? When they so obviously butcher English words with their Korean pronunciations, even when the title of the song is 'Love Parade'. Or should i say 'Lub-a Palade'?


xoxochadchad

G-Dragon & T.O.P. "highhigh" music video party

As you can see I didn't make it to Walkerhill for the Global Gathering/Autokratz party I had originally planned for my Saturday night. Instead I was lucky enough to get my hands on an invitation to a "secret" music video shooting for G-Dragon & T.O.P. of Big Bang's new single "High High" at Club Rococo in Itaewon.



I only got a few pictures in with my big camera before it was forcefully put into coat check, even though 90% of the crowd was doing the exact same thing with their various smart phones. Lame. Huge fan of the flight attendants square hair pieces and T.O.P.'s pink bullet belt slung over his shoulder. I'm undecided on his new white blonde hair but I definitely am not into G-Dragon's afro thingy. Here are a few iPhone videos of their brief but fun performance, the Boys partying with their friends and a listen to the new single played by the DJ with another look at those "square-do's":









2 of the other Big Bang boys were there and danced on stage. They seemed to have an endless amount of alcohol at their disposal - I wish. Most of the crowd they invited to this party spend too much of their paychecks on their clothes to afford the W10,000 price tag on the drinks. At least have some free beer or something, right?  Other than the performance, the best part of the night was Mongoloid dj's Kingmck & Eugene Blake's set. I was all over it when they played "Barbra Streisand" by Duck Sauce - love that track.






Is T.O.P. getting "High High" in this shot?? Naw, it's just a cigar kids.



















xoxochadchad