K-POP stars are known for donning designer items with styles their fans would like to follow. But most of their items have a hefty price tag and most fans do not usually have the same access to high-end brands. For example, a fur coat by Dan Cassab worn by Blackpink’s Jennie costs $3,600. Due to the high price, some fans opt to buy more affordable costumes replicated by local artisans, including in Indonesia.

The K-pop market in Indonesia is a big one. According to Twitter, Indonesia is listed under the top 20 countries tweeting about K-pop. The rampant exposure to Korean culture has influenced many aspects of Indonesian life. This includes the beauty standard of the South Korean idols, as explained by Azmiyah Nabilah Irsan, a Korean language and culture graduate from the University of Gajah Mada.

“A lot of these fans are looking forward to South Korea’s beauty and fashion items. Selling replicas of K-pop costumes is a smart marketing move because it can promote South Korean popular culture faster. In fact, some of the dance competitions often require the participants to dress similar to the K-pop groups [whose songs they are dancing to],” Azmiyah noted.

“Moreover, sometimes dressing like their idol is another way to appreciate them,” Azmiyah said.

William Anthony Yanko, a popular culture professor from RMIT University in Melbourne, added that sometimes fans used the opportunity to dress up as their idol as a way to build connections.

“For some people, it’s almost like building interconnectivity that seems to dissolve the time and space between the fans and the idols. Thus, it makes the idols more approachable to the fans,” William explained.

Style liberation

“I never thought I would start my own business. I want to be a fashion designer, but back then I didn’t see that fashion would be a good career for me,” shared Chandra Surhartono, the founder of a popular costume maker company named Sylph Crew, which has over 50,000 followers on Instagram. Chandra started his business a decade ago. He is arguably one of the most popular costume makers in Indonesia, with more than 50,000 followers on Instagram.

At first, just like those who are not familiar with K-pop, Chandra was not drawn into this particular trend. But he soon found that the avant-garde elements in K-pop fashion allowed him to express himself with colorful styles.

“K-pop costumes are very liberating from an aesthetic point of view. K-pop style mixes every pattern and color, but they somehow look coordinated together. For fans, it’s actually aesthetically pleasing,” he said. As a fashion enthusiast himself, he shared that having a costume business had helped him to understand how to make a clothes pattern and design. Additionally, creating a K-pop costume gives a similar experience of recreating game or anime cosplay costumes.

Moreover, he further shared that through the industry, he learned how to be a real fashion designer instead of replicating clothing designs by iconic designers like Vivienne Westwood or Virgil Abloh.

“In fact, in the last two years, I have also begun selling clothes I designed myself. I’ve been working on a project for Glass, a girl group from Indonesia, whose style is mostly influenced by K-Pop,” he said. Chandra further shared that most of his designs were influenced by the popular K-pop agency YG Entertainment’s artists. Often using bold prints, their costumes fuse the K-pop style with high fashion items.

Priska Masdalifah, a dance teacher and a part of Volume Dance Cover, a dance cover team based in Jakarta, is a frequent customer of K-pop costume makers. For her, wearing a K-pop costume is a method to explore her style and it even helps boost her confidence.

“The costume itself actually helps us feel more confident and presentable while doing the dance cover. Furthermore, it can actually help people to identify which group we’re covering. Besides, who doesn’t want to look pretty?” Priska shared.

Growing market

Aside from the aesthetic purposes, K-pop costume replica is a growing market, especially for a bigger costume artisan like Chandra, who can at least create 80 costumes in a month. As for the price, it really depends on how intricate the costume design is.

Chandra is not the only one who enjoys making costumes for fans. Diah Eka Rahmawati is another costume maker based in Bekasi. Diah quit her job as a production operator at one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in Indonesia right after seeing how the costume business was helping her become financially independent.

“Let’s just say that in a week, I can make up to 15 different costumes. The hardest part of it is probably that every group has a different style and some members would even have a different design. For me it’s a new challenge,” she said.

Another factor influencing the growth of the costume-making business is that many dance cover competitions ask the fans to replicate the idols’ costumes. These competitions even award prizes for those who have the best costume replication.

“In 2018, Blackpink held an outfit of the day competition during their comeback ‘Ddu Du Ddu Du’, and my clothes won first place. We gained more than 20,000 followers right after we made it to their social media,” Chandra added. He further mentioned that the dance cover group won an autographed CD and random polaroid picture.

Chandra spent hours looking at the details of the costume through the music videos and photos. Thanks to his hours of research, he was able to create a replica that is 98 percent accurate.

“The fact that it is a remake of an already existing design makes me think that I cannot charge my clients too much. But I will charge more for my own design,” Chandra added. For a costume replica, Chandra charges Rp 450,000 ($31.44) to Rp 2 million ($139.75), while for his own design the prices range from Rp 1 million ($69.87) to Rp 5 million ($349.37).

“It should be noted that I’m not making a mass-produced product,” he explained. Is it wrong to recreate a design? Olivia Nabila, a law graduate from the University of Brawijaya, explained that the law protecting the intellectual rights to any product varied from one country to another. “It should also be noted that it’s wrong to replicate a design of an item for mass production. However, if someone is inspired by someone else’s design, they should give credit to the original designer,” she explained.

Building communities

For the costume makers, creating a costume is not all about profit; it’s also building the community.

“Luckily, with the presence of social media, it is now easier to get connected with each other. Some of my clients are from the Philippines, Japan and even Germany. Sometimes I am concerned about the shipping fee abroad,” Chandra added.

“What the costume designers and dance cover artists are doing is a way of learning about a new culture,” he said.

While continuing his costume business and starting his own design house, Chandra said he felt the business had become an outlet to help fans who had a similar hobby.

“It’s fun because you also make people happy with your creations.”

The JAKARTA POST/ASIA NEWS NETWORK