For my third genre experiment, I’m turning to a world far removed from the digital softness of Lofi or the neon modernity of Electronic: Classical music. With its deep roots in tradition, formality, and historical prestige, Classical offers a completely different aesthetic and cultural frame through which to reimagine the visual storytelling of K-Pop.
Why Classic?
Classical music carries with it an air of refinement, structure, and cultural gravitas. It conjures visuals of orchestras, velvet-draped theaters, marble columns, tailored tuxedos, and gilded instruments. The aesthetic is steeped in a historical Eurocentric idea of “high culture,” and with that, comes a set of visual norms that are both highly gendered and heavily codified: men in suits or waistcoats, women in flowing gowns, all within a restrained palette of blacks, whites, and muted golds.
Introducing a K-Pop boy group into this visual world invites a fascinating tension. K-Pop thrives on the new, the now, the visually explosive. Classical is about heritage, structure, and restraint. What does it mean to place a contemporary idol into this visual lineage?
This genre is about elegance, legacy, and form. It will be fascinating to see how K-Pop’s emotional expressiveness and stylized gender play navigate these older aesthetic structures.
I’ll begin working on this classical transformation, developing visual motifs and styling cues that channel classical beauty through the K-Pop view.
