The names K-Pop, K-Series, K-Cinema, K-Fashion, and K-Webtoon have recently become increasingly popular around the world. Few regard the K or Korean fascination as a passing fad, but it has already established itself as part of the modern history of all of the above-mentioned media and businesses.
The school and college-aged teens of Generation X are already claiming to be cadets of BTS-Army, Stray Kids-Stay, Exo-L, Txt-Moa, Black Pink-Blink, Twice-Once, and other music bands and fandoms, (believe me, they are music bands and fandoms) backing and contagiously spreading, fitting into the role of ambassadors for these music bands straight from their scrapbooks, cutthroat conversations,
Many of Hollywood’s and Bollywood’s well-paid filmmakers create larger-than-life budget versions that are blatant rip-offs of K-Cinema.
In every metro and cosmopolitan city, Korean Super Markets and Restaurants are becoming must-visit shopping destinations. Many Indian teenagers are uploading videos on social media of their homemade ramen, kimchi-bokkeum-bap (kimchi fried rice), jjajangmyeon (black bean noodles), and Samgye-tang (ginseng chicken soup).
Korean style in the past
Korean fashion has a long history that has been influenced by outside countries, either through cultural intermingling or land occupation. Coming to attire, Korean males wore Jeongis (loose-end jackets/tightly fitted blouses) on their tops from the 14th to the 19th centuries, men wore baji (pants) and ladies wore Chima (skirts). The Korean elites of those times wore Hanboks, which were heavily adorned versions of Jeongis.
When Japan conquered the Korean country in 1910 and reigned for 35 years, the simple yet elegant traditional clothing went out the window. From tightly tied hair treated with natural extract oils to long chima covering the calf bone, a change in fashion happened to fit in new styles based on societal influences and changes in work lifestyles owing to the industrialization of the twentieth century.
Furthermore, World War II exposed cut shorts in the nationalized provision of food, fabric, shelter, and job security. To fit factory standards – employees, military troops, farmers, heavy machinery workers, and other bone-breaking arduous laborers, wore simplistic apparel from the touch of interwoven silk fabrics forming the floral embroideries to harsh & dark-colored mull clothing.
In the 1960s
However, for the Koreans, this was only an intermittent period of unrest. They were fully recovered from post-war trauma by the 1960s, and fashion was ushered in by the influx of westernized patterns. Miniskirts, Pop cuts, and new makeup trends proliferated at a quick pace. However, until the 1970s, the traditional lifestyle was unaffected and reigned supreme. The formal costume was mostly altered, and the generation wore tarried patchwork, jeans, and bellbottoms while listening to Bob Marley, Jimi Hendrix, and the Beatles.
In the 1980s
The 1980s were the decade of students, as well as the decade of long working hours. gigantic expansion of mega corps that were farmlands & waterbodies in the past. A growing educated female population took charge of businesses, factories, and the fashion industry, as well as tailored beauty products, which have transformed Korean fashion and clothing styles. For a decade, formal dress racks are replenished with T-Shirts, Yellow Jumpsuits, and Rugged Jeans in cloth stores.
Koreans dominated the music, cinema, and, of course, fashion industries in the 1990s. Unlike 70- 80s brands like Paris, Reebok, Gucci, and Adidas had disappeared, and local businesses had sprung up to produce their own unique items, popularized into well-known brands.
This trend continued into the 2000s, bringing international sponsors to form business partnerships with Korean firms.
In Europe and Asia, Korea’s telecommunications and technology goods have become household names. Korean corporations supported non-governmental organizations such as the Association of Asiatic Studies and the Immigrants Forum to promote ASEAN dominance over the G7 states in the geopolitical arena. Samsung, Daewoo, LG, and Hyundai established foreign headquarters in 131 countries, and Korean corporations supported non-governmental organizations such as the Association of Asiatic Studies and the Immigrants Forum to promote ASEAN dominance over the G7 states in the geopolitical arena.
However, nothing is as simple as a knife in the cake. South Korea is now facing the threat of ethnographic erasing as deflating population – a rapidly aging population, low marriage, and birth rate without replacing the dying generations – quite a conundrum attributing to the population paradox.
Ecological experts considered this anthropogenic warming to the world as the population growth rate has a vital role in climatic change.
This means many species go into extinction while a very small population of humans owns wealth, health and fertility, and natural resources.If we people and world societies are still insensitive, the future is a world of convoluted cultures and spectators of cultural collapse too.
One of South Korea’s primary schools, which once had 700 students, has been shockingly reduced to a mere 7 students within a matter of 3–4 years. (There is an exclusive documentary on Geo-Politics on a French TV channel (TV5 Monde Asie). This heavy drop in population has already started to reflect in other nations, namely Spain-Barcelona, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Latvia, etc.
As a result, Korea’s fashion, when combined with geopolitical trends, reveals to us a lot more about how to learn, experiment, exercise, adapt, and develop their own operational mechanisms in order to develop a better future.