[WHY] Behind Koreans’ nostalgic want to placed on a faculty uniform once more

 
 
Squealing girls and boys in uniforms working round excessive on adrenaline are to be anticipated in amusement parks. However at native funfairs, many in these college outfits aren’t truly college students.
 
Twenty-eight-year-old nurse Gang Yu-bin has taken half on this crowd of adults disguised as college students, donning a classy college outfit with a selfie stick in hand.
 
When she and her associates determined in September to go to Everland, a theme park in Yongin, Gyeonggi, Gang was excited as a result of she hadn’t been on a curler coaster in years.
 
Whereas looking round on-line for rides contained in the park, she encountered an countless stream of images of adults in class uniforms.  
 
She shortly realized that carrying a faculty uniform was a kind of hip new gown code at amusement parks lately and determined to offer it a attempt.  
 
 
However the place would she get a faculty uniform?
 

Gang’s drawback was shortly resolved when she found there was a faculty uniform rental store contained in the theme park.
 
“The shop was crammed with candy-colored pleated skirts, blazers, neckties, vests, belts and even backpacks,” mentioned Gang.
 

 
Comparable rental outlets have popped up throughout Korea over the previous few years.
 
Gamsung Gyobok, one of many largest and hottest college uniform rental shops in Korea, has 9 outlets throughout the nation, 4 of which opened this yr. It has been in enterprise since 2019.
 
Two different main uniform rental store franchises, Ever Gyobok and Ewha Gyobok, have every been open since 2019 and 2018.  
A lot of the shops are positioned inside or close to native theme parks.
 
Attempting on Korean uniforms at an area amusement park is a well-liked cultural expertise for foreigners visiting Korea as properly.
 
Most rental outlets supply on-line providers in English, Japanese and Chinese language.
 
Uniform rental outlets are additionally listed on journey websites Tripadvisor and Klook, which clarify the services as a spot to get pleasure from a “distinctive cultural expertise in South Korea.”  
 
“One other enjoyable and distinctive costume rental expertise in Seoul aside from carrying the hanbok [Korean traditional clothing] in Gyeongbok Palace,” reads one English overview on Klook for a faculty uniform rental store in Korea.  
 
 
However what’s the entire concept behind carrying college uniforms to amusement parks anyway?
 
“I used to be hesitant about it at first,” Gang admitted. “I wasn’t certain if carrying a faculty uniform as an grownup could be acceptable.
 

“However I made a decision to put on a uniform as a result of I used to be craving a brand new, enjoyable expertise, which it finally was. Sporting the uniform helped make your entire day really feel like a particular occasion. It additionally jogged my memory of my highschool days.”
 
She added that the outfit wasn’t as uncomfortable as she had anxious.
 
“I wore shorts beneath, and the skirt was truly fairly small in width so it caught to my physique properly.”
 
Some uniform-clad park guests ditch the rides altogether and simply go to take photos.
 
“We went to the park to put on the uniforms, not essentially to benefit from the rides,” mentioned Kim Su-yeon, 31, who went to Lotte World in Songpa District, southern Seoul, together with her husband final month.
 
The development of adults carrying college uniforms started as a well-liked prank that college college students would pull on April Idiot’s Day across the late 2000s.
  
The development obtained picked up by companies reminiscent of film theaters, shoe outlets and amusement parks as a gross sales occasion that gave reductions to individuals who got here to the venue dressed in class uniforms on April Idiot’s Day.

 
The phrase shortly unfold and the occasions acquired constructive suggestions from the general public who loved placing on their outdated uniforms whereas additionally reaping important reductions.
 
Particularly in amusement parks, basically closed off from the surface world, individuals tended to be much less self-conscious about dressing up as college students.
 
“It felt awkward after I first placed on the uniform, however as soon as I obtained into the park, I noticed so many different individuals carrying related college outfits as me and I shortly felt relieved and cozy,” mentioned Gang.
 

 
With the rise of social media and the rental outlets that started popping up round 2019, carrying a faculty uniform to an amusement park started to make its manner onto individuals’s bucket lists and {couples}’ must-do date lists.
 
At this level, individuals weren’t carrying uniforms simply to get the reductions; slightly, they have been going for the expertise of getting their images taken and feeling like they have been reliving their youthful days.
 
“Strolling round in a uniform made me really feel liberated from my age,” mentioned Kim. “I felt like a child once more, like I may do and be something I need.”
 
 
Are these uniforms the identical as college uniforms that college students in Korea truly put on?
 

“They have been extra colourful and fancy than to regular uniforms, and shorter and tighter as properly,” mentioned Gang. “I attempted on the boy’s uniform as properly and the pants have been actually tight, even for me! It appeared just like the uniforms there have been meant to be worn so that folks may look good within the images.”
 
However nonetheless, in comparison with actual college uniforms in different Asian international locations, Korean uniforms are usually extra on the fashionable aspect and influenced by altering vogue tendencies, mentioned Jo Tae-hee, a PR worker from native uniform firm Hyungji Elite.

 
Hyungji Elite sells its uniforms in China. It established a joint-venture firm with Bono, a Chinese language vogue label, in 2016. Its recorded a revenue of 18.82 billion received ($13.9 million) from July 2021 till the top of June this yr.
 
“Particularly in comparison with Chinese language uniforms, that are extra athleisure, our Korean uniforms, that are extra fashionable in addition to sensible, have confirmed standard there,” mentioned Jo.
 
From the late Nineteen Nineties, college uniform manufacturers started selling their garments with phrases like “idol vogue,” claiming that its garments make college students look slimmer. A number of the college clothes at the moment included fitted blazers, skirts above the knee and slender pants.

 
For over a decade now, 4 giant clothes firms — Sensible, Hyungji Elite, Ivy Membership and Skool Seems — dominate about 90 % of the native college uniform market, and their outfits are largely affected by native tendencies and standard tradition.
 

 
Nevertheless, a number of uniform manufacturers have come below hearth by the general public for creating and selling uniforms that encourage extra overt sexuality and objectification.
 
In Skool Seems’ 2015 advert, it used phrases like “Let’s see who’s extra skinny!” and “Squeeze the fats with the jacket.” Hyungji Elite in 2014 additionally promoted “V-line Skirts” for ladies and “Skinny Pants” for boys.
 
After such backlash within the 2010s, firms have been extra cautious about how they promote their merchandise, mentioned Jo, however nonetheless, many proceed to take model into important consideration, and designs are influenced by up to date Korean tradition reminiscent of Okay-pop, Okay-dramas and Korean actuality exhibits.  
 
 
What is the position of faculty uniforms in Okay-Tradition?

 
“College uniforms have been worn by singers for the reason that ’90s, however the model that’s standard right this moment in amusement parks and even for precise college uniforms will be traced again to f(x)’s “Rum Pum Pum Pum” for ladies and Exo’s “Growl” for boys, each launched in 2013,” mentioned Hwang Jin-joo, a veteran stylist within the Okay-pop business.
 
College uniforms are usually a well-liked selection of wardrobe, particularly for youthful Okay-pop stars who’re simply beginning out their careers, in line with Hwang, as a result of they relay a way of pureness and freshness.
 
 
Such an outfit clearly labored for Mnet’s Okay-pop woman group survival present “Produce 101,” which first aired in 2016. The sight of 101 younger ladies all donned in pink college uniforms was barely weird, but clicked with the general public. The ladies who turned finalists noticed big industrial success because the venture woman group I.O.I, topping music charts and nabbing rookie awards at native music award ceremonies. Its success has additionally led to a few extra seasons of the present.
 
 
Additionally across the identical time, JTBC’s school-themed discuss present “Males on a Mission” started airing in 2015, which exhibits common panelists and its weekly friends all sporting college uniforms.  
 
Korean dramas have constantly been utilizing college uniforms as a part of their go-to wardrobe as properly, reminiscent of KBS’s “Boys Over Flowers” in 2009, “Dream Excessive” in 2011, SBS’s “The Heirs” in 2013 and extra just lately “All Of Us Are Lifeless,” which was launched in January on Netflix.
 
 
 
What do precise youngsters right this moment take into consideration carrying college uniforms to amusement parks?
 
“I don’t fairly perceive it,” mentioned Lee Tae-hee, 17, who goes to high school in Gyeonggi. “I’ve undoubtedly been confused about why it is a standard factor to do for adults. I don’t see it as a adverse factor essentially, however I additionally don’t actually wish to be a part of it. College uniforms are uncomfortable even simply sitting and finding out.”
 
Search the key phrases “comfy college uniform” on the general public Blue Home petition boards, and over 100 outcomes will come up. Most of them have been began by college students.
 
“Please enhance our uncomfortable college uniforms,” reads the title of 1 put up. One other reads, “We want extra comfy uniforms for a greater college life.”
 
 
Lee has gone to an amusement park carrying her uniform, although: as soon as, when she was in center college.

 
“There wasn’t any that means behind it. We have been simply questioning what to put on and selected our uniforms as a result of it was the simplest selection,” she mentioned.
 
Lee mentioned she noticed extra adults there carrying college uniforms than precise college students.
 
“It’s type of ironic that adults put on uniforms to amusement parks. College and uniforms for us college students are kind of suffocating, each bodily and mentally, but adults these days understand it as a cute outfit.”

 
Popular culture critic Jeong Deok-hyun mentioned that adults in uniforms, at its core, is about nostalgia.
 
“People are likely to glamorize the previous, so for adults, carrying college uniforms is like leaping right into a time machine that is filled with nice recollections — they really feel like they are going again to the higher days.”

BY LEE JIAN [lee.jian@joongang.co.kr]