Not too long ago, soloist IU released her newest album, Last Fantasy, and with it a brand new music video for her song, “You and I.” The album has a coming-of-age theme to go along with IU’s upcoming twentieth birthday. In Korea, people are considered adults after they turn twenty, and the album plays on IU abandoning her childlike innocence and becoming a mature woman. Naturally, the fashion reflects this as well.
IU’s concept photos for Last Fantasy are simple and sweet. She is the focus of all the photos, posing around a white room with furniture and objects alluding to childhood. In all the photos, she wears white boots with undone laces and white fishnet tights styled in natural-looking waves, which represents the innocence. The short dress and fishnets add maturity to the look, mixing with the innocence and childlike nature of the photo shoot to create the theme of a woman on the edge of adulthood.
In “You and I,” IU has four different looks. At the train station, IU wears a long, cozy-looking colorblocked sweater over a long black shirt and red-and-pink socks. The comfy-cozy look is cute and suitable to the situation, playing a girl waiting for her mechanical boyfriend to wake up. She dresses like anyone would for laying around the house.
When the song begins, IU and her dancing crew appear. The male dancers wear brown sweaters and trousers while the female dancers wear bright red dresses, white tights, and different types of heels. In contract, IU wears a black mini dress with a lace collar, white tights, and green mary janes. I find the womens’ outfits adorable. They go along with the theme, are simple and cute, and have the vintage childlike-charm that I love so much. Bonus points that IU’s mary janes are green and not black or red.
At 2:58, IU’s third outfit appears, dressed more like a teenager. She still wears white tights and her hair is still in the same style, but she now wears a long-sleeved pink sweater and gold mini-skirt. At 5:42, IU appears as an adult in this scene, with shorter hair and a black top with a golden bow around her neck. Although her outfit didn’t deviate that much from her previous outfits, it gets across that the look is more “mature”, implying that she’s an adult.
Overall, I liked IU’s comeback fashion and it fits well with the overall concept of showing the evolution of a child to an adult. What are your thoughts on it?
(Soompi, YouTube, The Abracadabras)
