Why school uniforms are the "It" fashion at Seoul's amusement parks
it's not Peter Pan Syndrome
How often do you see grown ups at Disney World wearing high school uniforms?
Not often right? The only dressing up that does takes place is usually done by Disney employees donned in Mickey Mouse, Winnie the Pooh, Princess Aurora costumes as they get into character.
Fly halfway across the globe and a slightly different scene unfolds at Lotte World, one of the two most popular amusement parks in Seoul.
An average day at Lotte World, “the land of adventure and magic” (모험과 신비의 나라), reveals a crowd of high schoolers and adults, alike, promenading the grounds in school uniforms. There’s even a rental place where you can pick your school outfit of choice. Couples, friends, families, non-Korean tourists form an unofficial “Lotte school” with their fashion.
This K-uniform sartorial trend is…strange.
Normally, middle and high school students are more than eager to shed their uniforms for casual attire. The reason being two-fold: uniforms are uncomfortable and unflattering. Almost any Seoul high school graduate will know that the uniforms enforced at public and private high schools look nothing like the cute outfits worn by K-idols or seen in K-dramas for school themed narratives.
Yet, at Lotte World, people are ritualizing the act of wearing a uniform. It’s gotten to a point where it almost feels like a cult. At a glance it’s possible to diagnose this phenomenon as a manifestation of nostalgic yearnings—people want to revisit their high school years; feel like a student again. Some cultural context: many Korean middle and high schools plan annual field trips to amusement parks such as Lotte World and Everland. Thus, in the minds of most Koreans, Lotte World evokes memories of one’s youth.
But what’s beyond the nostalgia? It’s tempting to simplify the psychology behind uniform outfits by placing it under a single emotion, but doing so doesn’t yield us a complete understanding of this unlikely fashion trend.
Reclaiming youth
Wearing a uniform as an adult, as anachronistic as it sounds, can actually be empowering. From a certain angle, the uniform is a symbol of reclamation. When you wear a uniform to a location associated with childhood or adolescence, you’re essentially reliving that stage in life—or acting it out—but on your own terms. This last bit is important.
When you wear a uniform to a location associated with childhood or adolescence, you’re essentially reliving that stage in life—or acting it out—but on your own terms.
The student life in Seoul is heavily controlled. There are daily regimens that extend outside of school and into hagwons (cram schools). Even at school there are so many regulations. Wear this (uniform). Don’t wear that (makeup). Do this (study). Not that (games). Discretionary choice is out of the question for most students. Within such a restricted environment it’s easy to feel powerless; your sense of identity, your wants, your desires are effaced and supplanted with the duty to perform academically well.
There is little “me” to such a life. As such, reconfiguring the uniform, an emblem of studenthood, into an amusement park outfit is an assertion of one’s agency. The agency to wear what you want how you want. The freedom to transform the sartorial context of the uniform. The mandatory aspect of uniforms is dismantled through such arbitrary choices. In this manner, the decision to wear a school uniform to Lotte World is a sub-conscious means of reclaiming and playing out one’s fantasy of youth.
Brands as portals
For some, the fantasy of youth is characterized by unbridled freedom. For others, the vision is less about jurisdictional limits and more about attaining an emotional state of ease and happiness. Whichever the case, Lotte World is the stage on which people re-enact their adolescent fantasies.
It goes without saying that most of Lotte World’s adult visitors are aware that they’re no longer students. Nonetheless, people are attracted to fantasies, as illusive as they may be, for they enable people to transcend the parameters of normality; endow them with the courage to imagine another state of reality. In this light, Lotte World—a brand that’s at the threshold between nostalgia and fantasy—is a portal to another past. A parallel universe where we get to realize the unfulfilled dreams of our teenage years.
Lotte World—a brand that’s at the threshold between nostalgia and fantasy—is a portal to another past.
This transportive quality is what imbues Lotte World with the “magic” it claims to have. The Disney-esque castle at the center of the amusement park is not just a castle; it’s a bastion of dreams that embodies all the wishful thinking of kids, teens and adults. The castle is a persuasive device that nudges visitors to believe in the magic of transcendence. To momentarily depart from reality and the present to pursue the fantasy of unbridled youth in a uniform.
Brands like Lotte World sustain themselves and their fandom through the instillment of transcendent belief. People believe that going to Lotte World is a respite that doubles as a portal to another more carefree reality. This ability to transcend time and space to enter a new dimension opens up possibilities that are rarely considered within a quotidian context. It’s not everyday that we contemplate what to entertain ourselves with in the spirit of a newly revived adolescence.
Transcendence expands the boundaries of thought, probes us to imagine a version of ourselves that is foreign but not too inconceivable.
What brand is your portal to another transcendent self?
Another super interesting piece, Allie! I know a lot of people like to don Mickey Mouse ears or Disney clothes (especially at Disney World) to feel like a kid again. But I never thought school uniforms were a way to relive a part of your youth. I had to wear uniform since I was in the 3rd grade up until the end of high school, so I'm not sure if I would ever do it again. But if it's a way for others to reclaim a part of themselves, then i support it!