BTS’s Concert Outfits Reflect Their True Personalities, The Story Of “ARIRANG”
On March 21, BTS hit the stage at Gwanghwamun Square for BTS Comeback Live: ARIRANG to celebrate the release of their ARIRANG album. As always, they dressed to impress, but each outfit has a special story behind it.
Songzio, a label belonging to Korean designer Jay Songzio, designed BTS’s collection for the comeback show. This collection, called “Lyrical Armor,” was inspired by Joseon-era armor and reimagined with edgy, modern aesthetics. In an interview with WWD, Jay revealed that each member’s outfit matched a certain role or archetype within the ARIRANG story.
About two months ago, HYBE approached Jay to design the collection. The agency didn’t give him “any specific reference,” he said, “They just said, we want a theme, we want a story that revolves around individual members, which was crazy. I did some initial sketches, and we exchanged the general story and developed through quite a long design back-and-forth process.”
Although each member’s outfit has a specific character, the overall theme is connected to han.
Before going into the individual members, I felt that it was important to translate a very emotional healing into this collection, because at the end of the day music is all about emotion. And a very unique Korean emotion called “han,” which can be translated many ways, but it means sorrow and longing. In Korea, people say that we all carry “han” inside us because of our very turbulent history. Korea, since its very early ages, we have had countless wars – a lot of challenging and difficult times, and Korean people always had to overcome this sorrow. So I tried to build a story where these members become some sort of heroes, some sort of warriors who are fighting in these turbulent times and then leading to a brighter future.
— Jay Songzio
Jay told WWD that RM “became in our story the hero” because he “has this very charismatic presence as the leader.”
“Jin, who is a very elegant member, we decided to call him the artist,” he continued.
They decided to call Suga “the architect” because he is “usually the main producer” for BTS’s songs.
J-Hope, was dubbed “sorigun” because of his “rapid, very performative approach.” In Korean, “sori” means sound and “gun” means man. So “sound man.”
It’s one of these folk song performers from our histories.
— Jay Songzio
Jay’s team named Jimin, “a member who’s more soft and has a lot of performance,” “the poet.”
V, “who’s this very handsome man, we decided to call him seonbi. And seonbi is the Korean word – we could call it a nobleman, we could call it a gentleman in Korean history.”
Last but not least is Jungkook, “the vanguard.” Jay’s team decided on that character for him because he “has a very dynamic image.” Jungkook asked to have his white shirt painted “in a very rough, distressed way, inspired by Korean landscape painting,” so that was added to his outfit later on.
Jay said that the members themselves had “a lot of” input in the designs, which took him by surprise.
Honestly, in the beginning, I didn’t expect this much participation. I thought that after the first few sketches, the members wouldn’t spend too much time on the clothing. But then it was very, very nice, because they participated a lot, even down the very smallest details – things like colors they wanted, accessories. We spent a lot of time together with individual members.
— Jay Songzio
