Rawr, mommy, Rawr

Riddle me this: What do you get when you force Annie Lennox, Kylie Minogue, Prince, and Boy George to throw a Christmas party? Well, that's an easy one. This:

Imagine a legion of Vogue-induced G-Dragons walking around a London flat serving cocktails to a room full of guests who, because it's just that kind of party, are dressed quite similarly. In all honesty, I am quite in favor of this look, and this direction, because it means Vogue Korea is breaking through the traditional sense of 'fashion' for Korea and embracing something much more avant garde and, well, cooler. Move over Madonna, here come's the top material boy of Korea.

I never really liked G-Dragon as a performer, but for some odd reason I always respected him as a fashion icon without, really, being a fashion icon. He didn't make skinny jeans popular, that was Shinee. He didn't make leather popular, that was Rain. And he certainly didn't make leggings, high tops, hats, or oversized shirts

popular; those rascals are still out there on the run. But what h

e did do, oddly enough, is used his rather high-profile position in Big Bang to slap conventional and mainstream fashion trends in the face with some of his rather exotic and, at times, far fetched clothing concepts. For the majority of Big Bang, he was the fashion and concept stylist, and though some of the concepts were an utter miss on the grandest scale possible (such as gold and diamond studded hoodies), others were quite thought provoking.

However, if we learned anything from our little fashion icon, born in 1988 as Kwon Ji-Yong, is that color is not something necessarily something to be neglected by even the most aggressive male rappers and 'male' gender, and not just by the pretty boys. Need I remind everyone of Lollipop? Try putting Crown J into that outfit and see just how ridiculous he looks with his A-town coming out of his ass. Oh, wait, he already looks like that.

But our little man does have some major drawbacks. If we filter out the personality and musical flaws (save a few endearing snippets hard to reject), perhaps the greatest problem he faces is the rather outlandish and plain ugly haircuts. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, he is in fact responsible for shaving half your hair off and leaving the other half long. It's on the same level of bad as Micky Yoochun's crooked haircut (I never really figured out what this was even called) and 2pm's 'let's write words in our hair!' haircut (reminds me of an old Nickelodeon TV show where one of the kids attempts to buzz dollar signs in his hair because some rapper did it, but it turns out disastrous). From time to time, though, our boy doesn't always make the best fashion decisions, and at times the canonical face to palm is most definitely in order.

Perhaps our greatest trend setters, though, that find mainstream success are our Shinee boys. Granted, G-Dragon is quite mainstream, but I doubt we will be seeing boys wearing pink jump suits anytime soon. Shinee, on the other hand, always matches their boyish charm and looks with a fashion that appropriates it forward. Needless to say, they have very little say over what they wear, because I highly doubt they would have chosen to wear bright colored skinny jeans. However, they certainly have done the trick. Even in this new spread for Vogue, themed "Swan Prince", we can see elements of a 'wearable' fashion sense. Not only that, but the photos most definitely play to the strengths and already established image of the boys. All I've got to say is this: It's about damn time. I have grown tired of seeing spread after spread of models, entertainers, etc. in the most unnatural settings that seem as if that individual (or group of individuals) is out of place. Sure, they can do that with skill, but when the spread and those in the spread are at odds with each other, when they contrast each other to such an extreme that there is no chemistry, then we have a problem. However, I'm starting to think that maybe, just maybe, there is hope.

Well, at least we can enjoy the appropriate avant garde for the time being, because who knows how long it will last. Knock on wood.