FASHION'S OBSESSION WITH ROCK STARS

If the Korean government has constantly supported K-pop and K-drama stars ever since they resolved to make hallyu a world-wide phenomenon, it's because they know that they will be so influential that even related industries, like cosmetics and fashion, will surely benefit from the wave.

- RICKY TOLEDO & CHITO VIJANDRE

If the Korean government has constantly supported K-pop and K-drama stars ever since they resolved to make hallyu a world-wide phenomenon, it's because they know that they will be so influential that even related industries, like cosmetics and fashion, will surely benefit from the wave. Fans, after all, always emulate their idols by dressing up and looking like them.

Before K-pop, it was American and British rock that conquered the world, starting with Elvis Presley. Before him, fashion and music did not really have a strong synergy. But after Elvis, rock stars became the biggest influence on what young people wore for the next half century. Presley's rock and roll made music the primary channel for influencing and defining youth identity, exploding into the scene at the same time as the concept of the teenager in the 1950s when kids suddenly found themselves with leisure time and money. They spent both on music, then on clothes that their idols wore. With mass media making it possible to have a shared culture, young people started to define themselves less through class or locality. You were what you listened to and you made what you listened to incarnate through your wardrobe.