Post Seoul Report
Not quite a haul, admissions of skincare and journalling a place I can't define.
Seoul is hard to condense. Western journalistic outlets love to call it a ‘city of contradictions’ or rapturously describe the contrast of old and new, modernisation and mountains. It’s worth remembering that Seoul is rarely depicted outside of discussions of k-pop, k-dramas and k-beauty. Westerners don’t know or don’t talk about any of the real contradictions of Korea (not exempting myself from this), the Gwangju uprising or the seventh ruler of Koryo; Mokchong, who lived with his lover semi-openly in the 900s.
I personally like to judge a city by what the cool kids are doing. The cool kids in Seoul were buying Corpse Gyaru Pro-Wrestling trucker caps (in baby pink or baby blue) from Dragon Hill Print Shop.
The cool kids were partying at Cakeshop until morning. No drugs, of course, but people danced to the Hardpure girls and Kilo Vee until they couldn’t stand anymore. The cool kids sat outside the club chatting to i_D Asia’s editor and even cooler Shanghai cool kids, until everyone started to peel off trying to get taxis. It was cold, but a lot of sleeveless hoodies were present.
The cool kids all bussed into Permit’s secret rave at Seoul National University. They had pink hair in pigtails, classic rave gear (speed dealer sunnies, lots of faux bondage gear and crop tops) and Hyein Seo fits. Everyone only drank the elite Tōkki soju, but you could also get iced Americano to drink on the dance floor for when you felt sleepy. The rave was DIY, but the sound system was the best I’d heard outside of Berghain (sorry to say the B-word).
The cool kids drank Midori sours at Seendosi, and danced to sets by DJ Hotpot and Lucky6oys. They played hardstyle remixes of California Girls and Where’s My Juul and Shibuya Kei tracks. They danced with their arms flailing, earnest and grabbing their friends when an emotional track from a game or anime soundtrack came on. They post stories from holidays in Japan, where they make pilgrimages to defunct gaming stores to admire the original Serial Experiments Lain PS1 game.
It felt like threads of agejo, Shibuya Kei and Visual Kei were being woven into the party fashion. Typical Western rave gear paired with a self-aware ‘turn down for what’ 2012 juke and footwork attitude. Shabba ranks played at the club, but so did Never More by Shihoko Hirata (from the soundtrack of Persona 4). Japanese influence felt heavy, particularly a fascination with early 00s Japanese street style, though when isn’t this omnipresent in all subcultures?
It’s strange to amble around somewhere for a month. Enough time to get to know a place, enough time to realise how unknowable it is.
One of my favourite pilgrimages was going to Buam-dong to visit the Kim Whanki Museum. It’s so isolated from the rest of the Seoul gallery scene it feels like an afterthought, or a polite footnote. The gallery was almost empty, which meant we were able to walk around the space, designed by architect Kyu-seung Woo specifically to house Whanki’s work, which are predominantly large-scale abstract paintings. You can hear your footsteps echo, and there is a faint melody of soft piano playing at all times. The works swallow you up. I was most affected by the big “Whanki Blue” Universe paintings. The Whanki gallery felt truly, like another side of Seoul. Seoul has modernised at such a rapid rate, become a cultural and economic superpower so quickly that a lot of places in Seoul feel like they’ve sprung up overnight. The amazing teddy bear cafes and towering buildings full of fast-fashion and K-Pop merch feel like they were created for this decade, for the Instagram age and ‘Top Ten Things you NEED to do in Seongsu!’ TikToks. The Whanki gallery felt more like a pause, a reminder of a way of being and contemplation that it’s hard to feel in any major city, let alone one as large and busy as Seoul.
Cherry blossom season in Seoul feels like an explosion of euphoria and undeserved attention. Who? Me? I get to see this!? Nature is grabbing your cheeks and squeezing as hard as she can, until happy tears come out. The streets are lined with plump, white blossoming clouds, which in turn becomes the ethereal flittering rain, causing people of all ages to laugh and run under the pink shower. The two to three week cherry blossom period feels like taking ecstasy. When it’s bright, and present and unmistakably THERE you think: This is proof that I’m going to live forever and this will last forever and everything is beautiful. Every day is euphoric, seeing these perfect blossoms which cap off any holiday, affirm every dollar spent. As they start to leave, inevitably retreating, you get that desperate grabby feeling like the start of a comedown. No! It can’t be over yet!? Surely there’s more time!? Then the grey acceptance, a small bittersweet sigh of acceptance as you see the last of the blossoms forming a muddy rain on the ground, stepped over by so many busy feet.
People keep asking me about skincare and skin treatments. What did I buy? Did I get anything done? I didn’t mention that plastic surgery was increasingly starting to unnerve me, feeling more death-mask by the day. I am always willing to talk about Olive Young however. I had started to treat Olive Young with a church-like reverence, losing my breath and fumbling my words as I went in there for the tenth time that week. I knew I’d already gotten so much, was it really decent to keep getting more? The glinting cases of eyeshadow palettes and lip tints said yes, more.
(Feel free to skip this if skincare and clothes etc isn’t interesting to you- fair- there is more unrelated content below)
For my skin I bought:
The Anua Heartleaf 77% soothing toner. It’s very well reviewed and wildly popular, but I’ll express with complete honesty that I actually cannot tell if a toner is working or not. I have no idea. All I can say is, I haven’t had a pimple since I got back from Seoul- bible.
Numbuzin Collagen 73% Pudding now this is what you expect from Korean skincare. It comes in a delicious glass bottle and is pale pink. This is extremely brightening and plumping, truly youthful radiance.
Dr. Different Vitalift-A Forte is the most hydrating retinol I’ve ever used. The tube is tiiiiny, and expensive (by Olive Young standards- which is generally extremely affordable and fairly priced. Dear reader, please note that all of my links direct to the Olive Young US-site. In Korea, the prices are halved and then some!)
D’Alba White Truffle First Spray Serum was a decadent purchase. I’m skeptical of a spray on serum, and again, I’m not sure how much this does!? I find it difficult to measure as the proposed results are again ~glowiness and anti-ageing, which I feel like is hard to pinpoint to one product. However, it smells incredible (don’t come for me about fragrance in skincare- I know!) and I thoroughly enjoy misting it on after a shower.
Pysiogel body moisturiser. YES. Spartan German branding! 90s-esque minimal graphics! This packaging, unfortunately for me, is everything I want out of a product. Also, Julie Cho uses it. I hate to report that it’s the best facial cream I’ve ever used, at once feeling deliciously thick, but going on light and scentless. Sublime. I also got a lipbalm from Pysiogel and my lips have never been more hydrated. Langiege lip mask who!?
Illiyoon Ceramide Ato Body Lotion I did cart the 600ml bottle all the way back to Australia. This moisturiser is that good! It makes your legs feel like swan’s down.
Ofc, duh, I got the Round Lab Birch Juice sunscreen. I like to pretend I’m immune to TikTok, but of course I’m not! This sunscreen is as excellent as the hype will have you believe, but as a disclaimer I would like to mention as I didn’t see anyone talking about it: it has a subtle skin-whitening effect, that they describe as ‘brightening.’ It’s not fully in the skin lightening territory which is problematic for a number of reasons we don’t need to go into, but it has a subtle lightening effect.
I don’t want to continue harping on too much, but it might be fun to quickly point out some of the makeup highlights too, I mean while we’re here…
The Amuse Skin Tune Vegan Cover Cushion converted me to becoming a foundation wearer for the first time in my life. It has this softening and subtle blurring effect which almost isn’t noticeable, and it’s a perfect match for my skin tone so there’s no noticeable effect as it fades throughout the day. There’s also the extremely satisfying tactile feeling of the jelly-like cushion in the compact…
The Jungsaemool Essential Stick Glow is in my top five favourite makeup products of all time. There is something sooo SFX-level satisfying about holding a small tube of the BEST natural skin glow/dewy look in the palm of your hand. It makes you look like your skin is naturally weeping perfect diamonds. None of the Tati Westbrook-era glittery powder highlighter, this is pure optimisation baby!
A Vodona softbar flat iron in a pale lavendar colour. I’d had the same GHD hair straightener since year 9, when my extremely generous godparents included it in a sack of other Christmas presents. When I got my little black nailpolished hands on it then, my life changed. Back in ‘07-’08, people weren’t very nice to you if you had thick, curly hair. Especially if yours was frizzy, like mine. It was peak Scene frenzy and everyone wanted dead straight hair. As soon as that GHD was in my greedy little hands, I knew my slayage levels were about to rise. Unfortunately, since then I’ve never really looked back. That GHD is STILL going, to this day! However, it’s now been upgraded by the Vodona, which is much less damaging on the hair and more natural. I also couldn’t resist buying a mini, doll-size one for ‘rainy day emergencies and sleepovers.’ I have yet to even take it out of the packaging, but it’s tiny and chocolate mint coloured and I love it.
Honourable mentions to:
the fantastic Rom&nd eyeshadow palette in ‘Rosebud Garden’ which feels straight out of Popteen Magazine in ‘09, and has such a versatile range of perfect shades I’ve been using it daily
This Colourgram extreeemely pale pink blush (shade Merry Strawberry, though Milky Mulberry looks amazing too). Pale pink blush is trending in Korea right now, and I believe it looks good on every skin tone. Also, it makes me furious at how much I’ve paid for the Glossier Cloud Paint in the past. This is virtually the same formula, and cost me about $9.00.
The Tamburins perfume balm in the scent Chamo (honey, smoke and bitter sage). Tamburins is designed to look Diptyque-adjacent, and this tiny little perfume balm is an ingenious way to carry perfume with you. The only thing I dislike about Tamburins is their bizarre tendency to include a life-size hyper-real animatronic horse in all of their visual merchandising. It almost ran me out of Lotte Department store.
Conclusion: Mecca is overpriced! Anything you can get there, Korea does better.
I don’t want to kiss and tell when it comes to vintage shopping (aren’t those TikTok vintage clothing hauls gauche!? They strip the magic from the world!~), but some special pieces I picked up were:
An OSOI mini shoulder bag. This bag looks and feels significantly more expensive than it was. Most, if not all, South Korean clothing is incredibly well made for the price. OSOI’s range is emblematic of that. The production and quality is as good as most designer bags I’ve encountered, but it cost me about $270.00. It’s impossible to buy them outside of South Korea for less than $600-$700, so it’s very much worth going to the OSOI or Marge Sherwood stores in Seongsu (neighbours, and the shop girls wear eachother’s merch- it’s so cute!) and picking up a bag, if you can afford it.
A perfect Jacquemus dark suit-grey blazer. I naturally err away from any more structured or masculine shapes, as I’m shorter and have bigger hips I’m worried I won’t be able to pull them off. I tried this one on at BalBal vintage and walked away (after chatting with the guy working, who had actually gone to my university!?) but not without posting an Instagram story of the Jacquemus jacket I had left behind, and a very cute Comme Tao longsleeve with a strawberry cake on it lamenting that I hadn’t bought either. My inbox was then FLOODED with responses from people telling me wrong way, go back, do not pass go without structured Jacquemus blazer etc. So I went back, and it’s perfect, and I’m very happy I have it!
A strangely chic Armani skirt (I know. Armani? Not exactly a coveted brand in the year of our lord, 2023). It’s layered, and a deep grey with greenish undertones, with an extremely now buckle detailing. I’ve tried to date it using Vogue Runway, and I think I can nail it to ‘06 or ‘08. It feels like one of those pieces you’d never think to look for and never see again, but has become one of my most beloved wardrobe pieces.
A silver 925 Night Fruiti heart necklace with black cubic. It looks like something I’d draw as a kid. I had to buy it once I felt the weight of it. Cool, heavy and reassuring against my neck. I almost never buy or wear jewellery, though I have an obsession with heirloom jewellery, of which I have none.
Anyone who knows me knows that I have an unhinged relationship with stickers. Seoul has a small chain of stores called ‘Made By’ which almost exclusively carry stickers, all designed and made locally. It’s rows and rows of stickers, dim lights and the heat pumping. I had this insane feeling of transience in there, I’ll never see this again, I’ll never find this online… and so I bought a lot of stickers. Below are my favourites, which I firmly believe to be very special.
Some other perfect treats include Fritz Milk Cups, a Mono Magazine from 1987 and an Ilkwang lamp. No pictures. You just have to imagine.
I was in Seoul when Ryuichi Sakamoto died, and the cherry blossoms were still out. This was something it appears everyone noticed, as a lot of Japanese Instagram users were commenting cherry blossom emojis. Ryuichi passing during cherry blossom season does feel almost Truman Show-esquely Japanese. Did someone orchestrate this!? It’s that large swelling of an anime soundtrack, the beauty and nobility of death, purity always present. I was hoping to find a way to mourn publicly in Seoul, the way that in Berlin David Bowie’s Schöneberg apartment was flooded with flowers. It was a bright, white light day and I saw nothing for and about Ryuichi. Though I couldn’t help, like those Instagram commenters, feel comforted by the cherry blossoms that day. A few weeks later, in the smoky mass of Cakeshop, this juke remix of Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence played on the dancefloor. People lost their footing for a minute and then screamed, jumping to reach Ryuichi in the heavens, fingers grasping at vape smoke and club sweat. That, in a way, felt like a little goodbye.
I think people want a better answer from me about what Seoul is like. The truth is, I can’t really think of a way to sum it up. I’m sure Seoul is lots of different things to lots of different people. The experience is probably completely different when you’re experiencing Yoon Suk Yeol’s policies around overwork and gender. It’s different if you’re half-Korean and returning to a country which holds half your bloodline, and it’s different to be a foreigner who is there for a few weeks of shopping and food. The same is true of any place, though I feel there are core experiences for each place I’ve been and loved. LA is the obvious endless stretch of palms, but also a deeper underbelly of Hollywood Forever and Trashy lingerie, always feeling like leisure and mythos. Berlin is a city of magic realism, dark winks in the night and surreal mixes playing to a purple sky- dawn or dusk. Seoul is harder for me to contain, distill. If anything, it’s a city I have unfinished business with, that I’d like to get closer to, suck more marrow out of the bone.
