What the hell means k-popped? On drugs? No! K-poppers are the people who are fascinated by Korean culture, esp. pop-culture, Korean Pop.

We in Europe know barely anything about Korea much less about Korean culture.  But at the moment Korea’s popular culture gains more and more influence in Asia, and even in Eastern Europe and South America. This is calles the Korean wave. Time for us to give this small far-eastern country a chance to show us its well-rounded cultural scene by browsing around the capital Seoul.

What do we have to do to become a real K-popper?

First of all we have to check our closet.

To get some inspiration of the capital’s street style we check http://www.korean-fashion-online.com.

Short dresses, skirts, high heels for the ladies connected with the Asian sweetness and some chaotic/bohemian aspects. For the boys the cool casual cold look with big parkas, skinny jeans and hat.

We can easily buy the Korean style at http://www.stylebyshez.co.kr, a big low-price Korean fashion label.

Always the latest information about Korea’s fashion gives us the fashion blog http://www.feetmanseoul.com/.

Otherwise there is Asia’s biggest market and shopping mall in Seoul the Dongdaemun Market where we can find everything we dreamed of.

So prepared we can directly head to the Seoul Fashion Week (www.seoulfashionweek.org), which presents two times a year in march and october Korea’s most important designers for both women’s and men’s fashion.

One of them is the very famous already established for many years Lee Young-hee who gives the traditional costume Hanbok a modern spirit.

Another women’s designer is Lee Moon Hee with her label “bitter and sweet” who creates more experimental fashion with huge forms and particular cuts in mostly dark colours. It has a gothic touch.

For men there is a great designer with very modern bohemian clothes: Park Jong Chul, his label is Slingstone.

After checking out the fashion we make a trip to one of Asia’s most famous Festivals for contemporary dance: the Modafe festival in Seoul http://www.modafe.org/, where are performing dancers and companies from all over the world.

For being a real K-popper we have to listen to K-pop while travelling around the city. The most famous boyband is TVXQ, who are making mainstream pop music which makes girls faint. Also Big Bang has to be listened to, very young artists famous for Korean Hip Hop with R’n’B elements.

Next we call our best friend with the newest Samsung mobile phone to visit the SAMUSO: Space for Contemporary Art which exhibits the best contemporary designers of the country.

Do Ho Suh, one of the country’s most famous artists, but living in the USA, making sculputres and room-installation that draw attention to the ways viewers occupy and inhabit public space.

Another artist living and working in Seoul is Choi Jeong-Hwa, who does everything from architecture, installations and events (http://www.choijeonghwa.com/).

A rebellious group of visual artists are Young-hae Chang Heavy Industries, who are doing text-based Flash-animations with Jazz music in the background reclaiming revolutionary texts.

So now, after this trip around Korea’s cultural scene, we relax and sit down in one of the city’s restaurants, of course barefoot on low tables enjoying a soup of seaweed, listen to your heart beating in the K-pop-rhythm.

http://k-popped.com/

Christin Haschke