The K-Pop star delighted once more with a look few—very few—men will adopt with such enthusiasm

G Dragon at the Chanel Cruise show in Hong Kong (left) and going there from Incheon airport (right). Photos: gdragon_international/Instagram

By Ray Zhang

Two years ago, I wrote about G Dragon’s taste for clothes that bore similarities with what a wealthy auntie might wear. I find myself doing it again. A friend had shared a link with me on WhatsApp to an article on 8 Days online about what G Dragon (born Kwon Ji-yong) wore at the recent Chanel cruise show in Hong Kong. I wondered textually to her why she even bothered with those asinine fashion stories on the no-less-inane 8 Days. I generally do not pay attention to the celebrities paid to attend fashion shows, dressed in the respective brand’s finery to attract attention. I was more curious about Chanel willing to stage a collection that was Virginie Viard’s last (was it so good that it deserved to be shown again?), and not credit her, which confirmed to me that the brand can really go on without a creative director.

Anyway, G Dragon it is. Before he arrived in Hong Kong, fan sites were already sharing photos of him at Seoul’s Incheon Airport, dressed in a sweater-knit polo-shirt and faded denim jeans. Although the Chanel top was clearly a woman’s (but who’s distinguishing these days?), it was not really a problem. It was how he finished the look that was amusing: with a babushka worn atop a cap, affirming, also, what the scarf means in Russian—an elderly woman. And that was just at the airport. Required to dress to the hilt at a Chanel show, even if it was just the cruise season and a re-staging, G Dragon piled on the Chanel more than compatriot brand ambassador, Blackpink’s Jennie, would, including the classic Chanel jacket, a ruffled blouse, and a brooch in the form of a daisy instead of the camelia. I’m sure Chanel was very pleased. It was, for the maison, and it was celebrity endorsement well spent.

Required to dress to the hilt at a Chanel show, even if it was just the cruise season and a re-staging, G Dragon piled on the Chanel more than compatriot brand ambassador, Blackpink’s Jennie, would

Of course G-Dragon turned heads. It was the intended effect. Those who thought he looked off (as I had before, but not anymore) missed the key point: This was adopting fashion to the max. And to do Chanel better than Chanel or any Chanel-wearing woman could. His fans—Chanel, too—do not expect him to look like you or I, or your really rich aunt. He has to be the K-pop star, even when off-duty. While the brand has always tried to be ‘young’, G Dragon returned it to its rightful place, among the wealthy matriarchs or oligarchs’ wives, or those who think they are either one of them. Chanel has been using G Dragon as the brand doyenne to tell those who can afford their clothes that even G Dragon can look like them—auntielicious.

The thing is, as G Dragon grows older (he’s 36), he desires to look even older. If he isn’t doing auntie, he’d be doing uncle. When he appeared at a Seoul police station last year during an investigation into alleged drug-related crime, he looked nothing like the edgy K-pop star he has groomed himself to be. The ability to swing both ways aesthetically is admirable. I do not personally know anyone who could. You are either auntie or uncle (even if that is too binary for today’s adopters of fashion or K-pop fans, especially those who can’t be bothered with gender perceptions); you rarely can switch, and with such remarkable ease, and comfortably inhabit the clothes that suggest maturity prematurely. I watched social media reels of G Dragon at the Chanel HK show, and I must say, if he did not play a role, he certainly lived it up.