Seoul's offline Netflix: Seongsu
where Dior, Cartier, Gentle Monster are lining up to play with the cool kids
Ta-dum.
Now nothing this cinematic greets you when you emerge from Seongsu station. Albeit, when you consider that every 35.58 square feet (1평) of Seongsu is roughly $100k (for comparison, walking the same distance at Gangnam is about $70k), there probably should be some dramatic tune that announces your descent onto Seoul’s hippest neighborhood.
Seongsu is where the cool kids are at. The kids who sacrifice 4 AM mornings for exclusive designer collabs; the kids who are already over Park Jaebum’s One Soju; the kids who are ready to devour the latest trend and regurgitate it at K-speed. Why else would high nosed brands—think Dior, Cartier, Jaeger LeCoultre—deign to situate their pop-ups and events in the warehouse-lined streets of a neighborhood historically known for being the site of factory production? Although if you take into account that Seongsu has been home to shoemaking artisans for several decades, the settlement of these new brands doesn’t create so much of a juxtaposition.
A stroll through Seongsu makes it pretty clear that it’s the people who make it cool. This then raises the question: what compels Seoulites to gravitate towards this particular neighborhood?
Offline Netflix
Seongsu is a platform just like Netflix. An array of eclectic brands dot the streets at a pace and frequency that is pedestrian friendly. The spatial tempo of Seongsu is such that people can “switch channels” as they walk in and out of shops, cafes, pop-ups, etc. The high concentration of branded content, be it a personal color workshop (by Samwha Paint), an artificial meadow reifying the world of Miss Dior or an avant-garde exhibition by Gentle Monster, gives visitors a plethora of options to swim in. This diversity in choice translates to exploratory freedom.
Exploratory urges are manifestations of our desire to play. Believe it or not, our predilection to “mess around” is deeply rooted in our DNA. It’s how we learn, adapt, evolve. Play is an integral part of the inquisitive journey we undertake throughout our lives, no matter our age. And it is precisely this desire that Seongsu taps into. The entire neighborhood, with its patchwork-esque roster of high and indie brands, presents itself as a playground for adults.
The entire neighborhood, with its patchwork-esque roster of high and indie brands, presents itself as a playground for adults
Wait, how is this any different from a department store? Fair question. From a compositional standpoint, malls have just as rich—if not even richer—a spectrum of brands. However, what differentiates Seongsu from your Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenues and Harrods is that brands aren’t so focused on selling a specific product. Immaculately lined shelves are displaced by interactive photo zones that invite visitors to immerse themselves in a brand’s vision. The emphasis is less on product and more on experience. Bags, shoes, perfumes, watches are removed from the pedestal of consumerism and re-embedded within a spatial narrative that mediates the different lifestyles espoused by these very products.
For example, Samwha Paint forwards a narrative centered on personal mood by encouraging people to discover a palette of colors that emotionally resonates with them. That they are a paint company is only lightly touched upon. What’s important to Samwha is that customers register them as a brand that is capable of channeling personality through color. Likewise, Miss Dior’s pop-up, which features a mirrored room filled with artificial flowers, communicates to visitors that the brand’s scent embodies a vivacity that enhances feminine allure (it would have been cooler if they’d filled the entire room with REAL flowers but alas costs can’t be ignored); Miss Dior’s scent is visually transposed and rendered more tangible. Neither brand highlights product nor price so much. The objective here is to sell a vision, not a product.
As such, Seongsu’s branded spaces are designed to give visitors a glimpse of the life they could have. They are, in essence, an invitation to venture deeper into the worlds proposed by a gamut of brands all promising a better life.
Photo-zone psychology
What’s noteworthy about Seongsu is that its spaces are highly photogenic. Almost every brand pop-up has a space that is dedicated to taking photos. Asides from the organic PR effect that such spaces generate, these zones allows visitors to insert themselves into the center of multiple brand narratives.
In doing so, visitors are essentially borrowing the cultural cachet of larger brands to stream their individuality. When you pose in the middle of Miss Dior’s artificial meadow or stand next to Gentle Monster’s gigantic man figure, you automatically cause a visual linkage to form between you and the brand. Such spatial proximity is crystallized and amplified in photos, which when shared on social media, signal to viewers that you—or your carefully curated digital counterpart, to be more exact—embodies the grace, iconoclastic nonchalance, poetic reflectiveness of the brand you are choosing to associate yourself with. In a way, this is a shortcut to making yourself look cool. And in branding terms, a most excellent means of leveraging brand endorsement. What I mean by this is simple: your proximity to Dior, Gentle Monster, Cartier, Tamburins—brands with a large fanbase who believe and persuade others into believing that their beloved brand is covetable—serves to buoy your coolness level up several notches. Brand narratives are a lexicon deeply rooted in economic, cultural, sartorial symbolism whose social ramifications are, more often than not, generically extricated and lumped up into the phrase “cool”.
Visitors are essentially borrowing the cultural cachet of larger brands to stream their individuality
Live long enough in Korea and you’ll hear phrases such as “human Chanel (인간샤넬)” and “human Gucci (인간구찌)” being thrown around and applied to A-list celebs (i.e. Jennie, IU). While the expression is obviously an hyperbole, it does connote the extent to which celebrities are able to deftly internalize the glam inherent in luxury brands. It’s one thing to wear a brand and another to make it one’s own. The last thing anyone wants is to walk around looking like a billboard for LVMH that even Bernard Arnault would shy away from. Yet, it is not uncommon to see Seoulites leaning into a heavily branded look—I’m referring to the Chanel classic flaps, Hermes sandals, Gucci trainers, Celine belts that dominate the streets. This penchant for and reliance on luxury brands is a phenomenon that Arnault definitely wants to reinforce and engrain into a young Seoulite audience. Cue the intricately designed photogenic spaces that proliferate across Seongsu. The Seongsu rhetoric is clear: where you choose to be is a reflection of who you are. Like so, brands want to establish themselves as a scaffold of expression that eventually burgeons and deepens into something that is integral to an individual’s identity.
If you ask why Seoulites are so bent on channeling their identity through luxury brands, I am more than tempted to attribute this predilection to a repressive adolescent culture where self-expression isn’t practiced enough. All throughout middle and high school, Korean students are taught and reminded that abstinence is key to success. Put differently, anything asides from studying is relegated to the realm of “later” aka “once you’re in college”. But anyone who’s ever been to college probably knows that enrolling in uni does not automatically make you a better thinker or speaker. Self-articulation, which entails self- expression, is an art that requires practice much like any other subject. However, most Koreans pass through adolescence without mulling over who they are, what they like, and how to express their idiosyncrasies.
Then there is also the “I must stand out” aspect that is goaded on by a hyper-competitive environment. From an early age, Koreans—but especially Seoulites—are socially preconditioned to be numero uno. Unfortunately, as reality would have it, it’s not possible for everyone to go to the best uni, the best company or marry the best person. There is no one “best” that fits all. Nonetheless, at the bottom of this obsession with being the best is a yearning for success. And what better way to prove yourself to others than aligning yourself with big luxury brands?
Discovery is play
Seongsu is, at heart, a playground for adults to discover themselves through brands. Much like children, adults still find themselves on top of a trajectory of self-exploration; albeit one that is buttressed by a constellation of brands that evolve depending on how much one is willing to invest (splurge). Visitors promenading through Seongsu will feel that the neighborhood serves as a conduit to explorational growth. It is precisely this conduit-like nature that attracts crowd after crowd and prompts people like me to coin the neighborhood Seoul’s “offline Netflix”.