AnthroScope Korea

to wear? Korean or non-Korean brands? What do our fashion choices tell us

about our cultural perspectives?

Living in different countries truly shapes the difference between what Korean boarding students wear and what international school students wear. I’ve noticed this firsthand. 

Before I moved to the States for boarding school, I did not have easy access to non-Korean brands. In fact, I didn’t know many brands other than the typical Korean brands. I often went downtown with my international school friends in Korea to shop for clothes in small boutiques. Until that time, it felt like there wasn’t much of a difference between the styles of boarding school and international school students. However, when I first moved to the States for boarding school, I noticed that fashion choices and beauty standards varied in the two environments.

Adjusting to a new environment, I realized that many of my new friends from the States wore clothes from well-known American brands. As a new student in America, I found these brands unfamiliar, especially for someone who had only shopped at small stores in Korea. Initially, the fashion choices I encountered were more “preppy,” floral-printed, and colorful, relative to what my international school friends would choose to wear. I was very familiar with wearing overall monotone colors like brown, black, white, and other solids instead of printed clothes with floral patterns all over. 

However, around my new friends, I wanted to be vulnerable, add some spice, and change my original style, mainly to benefit from easier access to new American brands. I’ve  become more familiar with famous American brands that target teenagers like me, such as Brandy Melville, Hollister, Skims, and many more. Wearing these brands also had me identify outwardly more as an American student fitting in with American peers than as a Korean student living and studying in America.

Throughout the past few years of attending boarding school in America, I’ve come to realize that I have grown accustomed to buying most of my clothes from famous American brands instead of choosing clothes from small and not very well-known Korean brands. I went from shopping for clothes at unknown stores in downtown Korea to scrolling online for clothes on popular American brand websites. Through this, I witnessed firsthand that the environment surrounding a student does indeed plays a key role in his or her fashion choices and styles, which also impacts a student’s cultural affinity.