BLACKPINK in your area! And on the cover!
It’s not like BLACKPINK and/or its individual members, Jennie, Jisoo, Lisa, and Rosé haven’t covered a magazine before. But this is a major American magazine cover. And it’s not like American magazines are the end all and be all. But many do consider them to be representative of critical mass awareness. Which is why they should be called on to be more diverse, to be more responsible about their tastemaker status – to broaden their scope when it comes to fashion and beauty culture.
Then again, let’s not give ELLE too much credit. If you are a fashion magazine and if you’re covering fashion and beauty culture, how could you possibly ignore BLACKPINK? Jennie, Jisoo, Lisa, and Rosé are all ambassadors for French fashion houses. Jennie reps Chanel. Jisoo is Dior. Lisa is Celine. And Rosé is Saint Laurent, each brand reflective of each of style personality. My favourite part of this ELLE article is when Jennie was at Paris Fashion Week and fans lost their minds when she stepped out the car – but the photographers weren’t ready to shoot her at the time. Because, well, they hadn’t quite caught up. They’re still waiting for the same faces they’ve always been waiting for, unaware that there are new faces that people care about.
Some people then will see this ELLE cover and recognise these four East Asian women. Others will be meeting them for the first time. So this piece is an introduction to BLACKPINK, an entry point. For BLACKPINK too it’s part of their strategy – to further penetrate western markets, timed to the release of their first full length album on October 2 and the subsequent Netflix documentary.
Meet BLACKPINK. They are music and they are fashion. They are the look. I mean, these looks!
And the looks are part of it. As Rosé says in this interview, “Music and fashion cannot be separated”. It’s just that Korean music and Korean fashion spirit weren’t considered to be the trendsetters, at least not until recently. But here we are, BLACKPINK is in the area of style and beauty, part of a bigger movement out of South Korea that’s taking over globally, from performers to products. And considering that Jennie, Jisoo, Lisa, and Rosé are making their biggest push yet during a pandemic, and still seeing these kinds of results, imagine how much of an area they’ll be invading when restrictions are finally lifted.
To read the full ELLE article on BLACKPINK, click here.
