OK, so how did you imagine the characters they represent?
One key word that nobody wanted for some reason was “warrior,” so I changed that to “hero.” RM is the hero, since he’s the leader. Jin is the artist. Jimin is the poet. Guga is the architect. Jungkook is the vanguard.
J-Hope and V are the two characters whose names might be a bit unfamiliar. We decided to name J-Hope Sorigun. Sori means sound, and gun means men. So it’s sound men, a mix of this musical flair with history. V’s character’s name is Doryeong. There isn’t the exact word in the Western vocabulary, but it’s a mix of nobleman and sophisticated Korean gentleman.
What did that mean in terms of clothing?
My first idea was trying to reinterpret traditional Korean armor. But once we started designing with the different plates, it got quite rigid, which was an issue because there is a lot of activity. So we tried to mix this with hanbok, which is Korean traditional clothing, where one of the most important ideas is fluidity.
Every band member got one costume, but it had to transform. That was both conceptual and practical. Conceptually, it reflected the idea of metamorphosis. But they also had to perform for two, three hours, so they requested a lot of detachable elements that could be taken off, draped and worn in different ways.
J-Hope has these militaristic cargo pants with a hidden zipper at knee level that could be undone to create very large volume and be worn as shorts. RM has a long jacket with a zipper that can be unzipped to create a cape-like silhouette.
Was everything made in Korea?
We had a lot of washed, destroyed fabrics, a lot of natural, organic fabrics, a lot of cotton and linen, all developed in Korea. We actually created a new fabric for this: a cotton hand-woven with very thick threads that kind of protrude to create a brushstroke effect like historic Korean landscape painting, which was on very rough paper.
