Korea is pop culture's secret weapon. From K-pop to K-beauty and Seoul's take on the hypebeast, Korea is the first country to really challenge the United States as a cultural epicenter of the world.
• K-Pop Puts Seoul on the Map: Before the 2010s, when we said "Fashion Week," most of us immediately thought of the big four fashion capitols — London, Paris, New York, and Milan. But this decade saw a real shift in putting smaller fashion weeks on the map, from Nigeria's Lagos Fashion Week to Denmark's Copenhagen Fashion Week, and particularly Korea's Seoul Fashion Week. K-pop's influence on the West started in 2012 when Psy's viral "Gangnam Style" music video reached a record-breaking 3.4 billion views on Youtube. After Psy introduced the West to K-pop, we couldn't get enough. In the past year, the global success of the K-pop scene, with bands like BTS and Blackpink, has skyrocketed to international acclaim and influence. Case in point: Lisa from Blackpink was the sixth most powerful dresser in the world for 2019, according to Lyst.
