Update before heading off to vacation for a week, so we'll see when the next update will be ^^;
Chapter 3
Part 2
From stage costumes to private life
The secrets of Girls’ Generation’s fashion and make-up
Trendy Generation
Girls’ Generation becomes dolls?!
Girls’ Generation released their first album, “Girls’ Generation,” in November 2007. At the time, the album jacket photos caused quite a stir.
In the jacket photo, there were 9 mannequins lined up. However, they were not dolls, but Girls’ Generation disguised as dolls. They wore accessories with fashion that matched each of the girls characters. Almost as if they were like Barbie dolls. Even in the MV, the members that were disguised as dolls charmed the fans with doll-like expressions and movement. Furthermore, the cute and trendy doll-like figures were quite popular that real Girls’ Generation dolls were sold later.
Jacking the front cover with rainbow colors!
Girls’ Generation does not only influence fans through only dance and singing. They have tremendous influencing power from fashion to lifestyle.
In 2008, Girls’ Generation was selected to be the ad models for Italian sports band ellesse. The ad’s concept was “Rainbow Friends.” Each of the 9 members had their own color theme and the ad presented 9 different kinds of dreams and friend’s story.
A representative of ellesse said, “Through Girls’ Generation, we want to show a different ellesse to young people from their 10s to their 20s.
Girls’ Generation vs. Wonder Girls?! Rivals even with fashion
Wonder Girls and Girls’ Generation are idol groups that represent K-pop. Because of that, Wonder Girls and Girls’ Generation are always compared to each other. Even in fashion, the 2 groups are symmetrical: the rough sexy appeal of Wonder Girls compared with innocent Girls’ Generation.
A representative of the fashion world commented, “Everyone in Girls’ Generation wears clothing that matches while in Wonder Girls, all 5 members’ clothes are different. Girls’ Generation appeals to innocence and sexy clothing emphasize Wonder Girls. You can see they are completely different, but the strength of influence on young people and on brand name sales are the same.”
Leave any kind of genre to them!
One of Girls’ Generation’s charms is their clothes. The costumes that Girls’ Generation wear has become a point where it will obviously be a big fad among young people. With the release of their mini album, “Gee,” in January 2009, Girls’ Generation lead the fashion with pastel color skinny jeans and the phrase, “Girls’ Generation Gee Look,” was born. Also in the same year in June, they changed to marine girls with the 2nd mini album release, “GENIE –tell me your wish.“ The cute and sexy marine look became a fad.
Certainly, Girls’ Generation is the fashion leader no matter what kind of genre it is.
Cute in T-shirts! Tweety Appeal
In June 2009, Girls’ Generation have been appearing in a lot of extravagant clothes up to now, but on this day, they appeared in a rough style of jeans or short pants and t-shirts. The participating members showed off Warner Bros. popular character in “Looney Tunes,” the attention grabbing fashion icon, Tweety.
At the multi shop opening event of Tweety merchandise, including jewelry, bags, clothes, watches, and shoes, Girls’ Generation appeared as models showing off Tweety.
20 page exclusive! Prominence in the fashion world too
In April 2008, they chosen to be advertising models for Italian sports brand, ellesse, and became Korea’s young female fashion icons. Girls’ Generation jacked the cover of a fashion magazine. In 2009, Girls’ Generation was chosen to be the cover models for Korea’s top female fashion magazine, “CeCi.” The first time for all members of an idol female group to adorn the cover of a fashion magazine was Girls’ Generation.
Also, in the magazine was a 20 page exclusive on Girls’ Generation and this was the first time in the history of CeCi to have this many pages for a cover model.
Seducing with rouge make-up! Eyes that show determination up with smoky eye make-up
In 2010, Girls’ Generation did a complete 180 from a sweet and clean image to sexy females. Everyone wore tight black clothes with black knee high boots. Fans were surprised and excited with the new Girls’ Generation. “Run Devil Run” is a rock style song with its theme being a warning to a male to not play around with females. The girls wore sexy black clothes for the image of the song and a complete change from the image they had up to now
Not only did the clothes change. Emphasizing dark eyes, the feature was smoky eyes and the devilish make-up became a hot topic.
From the choreographer to the doll dance
The secrets of Girls’ Generation dance
The Birth of Big Hit Dances
Yoona’s persistence
Girls’ Generation are good friends with each other even before debut. Yoona commented, “We knew of each other before debut and understand each other really well as members.” It is because Girls’ Generation gets along so well with each other that their dance performances are in synch. However, they also have their conflicts with each other during dance practice.
“The members are good friends with each other, but even now, our opinions over the dance choreography have conflicted. However, since everybody has good intentions, I think it’s good to voice our opinions like this and it’s important to consolidate those opinions to become Girls’ Generation,” Yoona spoke on their persistence.
Jessica’s thoughts
When you think of dance with Girls’ Generation Hyoyeon first comes to mind. Nicknamed the Dancing Queen, her abilities are for certain. However, Jessica does not lose to Hyoyeon as well. In order to show a stellar dance performance, Jessica also asks the members for constructive criticisms during practice.
Jessica explained, “Members contribute their opinions on Girls’ Generation’s concept and how to show a good appearance for this song and the like. At first it was confusing, but we’ve grown accustomed to bouncing ideas between members and coming as a whole together,” on tackling dance formation with all the members.
It’s because they had a rough training period
Korean idols have a strict training period of singing, dancing, and a mountain of other things they need to do. Girls’ Generation also endured strict practices. The longest time among the members that were trainees was Sunny at 9 years and even the shortest time, Tiffany, spent 3 long years as trainee. Taeyeon, who says she is the weakest at dancing, holds a past of not being able to endure the training and left for home once. In contrast, Yuri, who won the first SM Best Youth Dance Contest before becoming a trainee, is skilled in dance.
The members’ trainee period, experience, and abilities are all different from each other.
The origins of a big hit
In July 2007, at the time they debuted with the single, “Into the New World,” all the members were high school students. Now their sexy dances with beautiful legs are popular, but they appealed to the fans with their teenage lively energetic choreography for “Into the New World.”
It is said among the fans that the choreography for “Into the New World” is their most intense and difficult one among Girls’ Generation songs. The dances of their next releases, “Girls’ Generation,” “Oh,” and others are all big hits. The number of fans that want to copy the girls’ cute and sexy dances continues to increase.
Rebellious dance to guitar dance?
In their album, “Girls’ Generation” that was released in November 2007, the also included a variety of dances besides their cute and sexy dances. The fans looked forward to the variety of dances that Girls’ Generation would show in the album, “Girls’ Generation”, such as the cute doll dance where they moved and had expressions like a real doll, or a rebellious dance that moved like a selfish and spoiled kid, and guitar dance where as if they were really actually strumming a guitar.
Girls’ Generation, who danced a variety of dances, said proudly, “ We showed an 80’s style dance in “Girls’ Generation, but since we plan to change the composition little by little on stage from now, please look forward to it.”
The dance move has the letter “g”?!
“Gee,” which was released in January 2009 and a song about a girl who falls in love for the first time, was a big hit in Korea and created the Gee Syndrome.
The dance that appealed to the male heart was immensely popular among the fans, who said it was cute and wanted to copy the dance. There is a movement where the legs open and close while moving left and right and since it looked like a crab, it was called the crab dance among the fans. Also, the part of the chorus where they sing “gee gee gee gee,” they use their finger to write out a lower case “g.”
Dancing even in CMs!
Girls’ Generation is also quite active in CMs.
One of the CMs that Girls’ Generation appeared in is Samyang Foods’ “Samyang Ramen” CM. In order to show the appeal of Samyang Ramen to 10-20 year olds, we chose Girls’ Generation to be our spokespersons. Girls’ Generation’s bright and lively image fits perfectly with our product concept,” explained a representative of Samyang Foods. The choreography as if they are eating ramen is different flavor from their usual sexy choreography. Also, the fans call the CM song the spinney song and the dance the spinney dance.
The choreographer for Girls’ Generation is actually Japanese!
“Genie –Tell Me Your Wish-“ was a mini album that was released in June 2009. The choreographer in charge was a Japanese person named Nakasone Rino.
Nakasone Rino is a 33 year old from Okinawa. She left to America at 19 and is currently a professional dancer teaching dance in America. She was also the choreographer in charge for other groups such as Girls’ Generation senior, BoA, and f(x). The choreography’s main point is the movement of the arms and legs and Girls’ Generation’s exceptional style and perfectly matched formation stands out. Furthermore, from that leg movement, the fans call it the hacky sack dance and beautiful leg dance.
The one who gives the commands is… Taeyeon!
When dancing, it is difficult to perfectly synch 9 people. Therefore, when the girls are not in synch with each other, they call it out.
By calling it out during the dance, the 9 members of Girls’ Generation can match up their movements. The one who calls out those orders is the member who has a strong sense of responsibility, Taeyeon. Taeyeon is the one who commands to the girls, “1, 2, 3!” in the music video of “Oh!” an album released in January 2010.
However, there are times when the youngest member, Seohyun, is the one who gives out orders. Without any regard to age difference, she voices it over while they dance.
Transmitting a view of a dance practice!
The dance only version video of “Oh!” that was released in January 2010, was shown to the public on the video specialty site, Youtube, and recorded the most hits.
The video amazingly reached 273,173 views in one day. In the video, Girls’ Generation were dancing wearing super short jackets with enamel pink knee high boots. Moreover, this wasn’t at a concert, but real video of them dancing in a normal dance practice room. In a casual and cozy atmosphere, their dancing form is fresh and different from the usual dance shown on stage.
Provocative Dance!
The album, “Run Devil Run,” that was released in March 2010 is a complete change of Girls’ Generation image up to now. Furthermore, in sexy clothes, the focus is on the devilish Girls’ Generation dance. In “Run Devil Run’s” PV, wearing black and white tight fitting clothes, the girls show a sexy dance that matches the rock tune of the song.
For the song’s theme of warning a bad boy, one can see the scheming in the dance’s choreography. In the middle of the dance, they also took a part of Korean figure skater, Kim Yuna’s performance. The dance matched with the “007” theme at the Olympics.
Sense of rivalry
It can be said that all Korean idols dancing is good. Before Girls’ Generation, idol groups like Kara and Wonder Girls have strength in dance. Even always perfectly in-synch Girls’ Generation puts in effort everyday in order not to lose.
Aired in April 2010, on MBC’s variety show, “Star Dance Battle,” starting with Girls’ Generation, other idol groups like 2pm had a battle against each other. Girls’ Generation’s Yuri, Hyoyeon, Seohyun, and Yoona performed a powerful sexy dance, but After School defeated them.