Chapter 21 – Handle with Care
I spent a lot of time thinking about the outfits.
Thanks to how famous the profile pictures on our website had become, simply wearing the exact same hanbok design had actually become a pretty good option.
If necessary, I was even prepared to go all the way back down to Namwon and rent the same outfits again.
But in the end, I decided to accept modified hanbok made specifically for stage performances.
Malcolm Korea, the company I had already built an unpleasant history with once before, contacted us first.
Malcolm’s PR department had been experts at changing faces ever since my Victory days.
So there was nothing strange about them suddenly changing their attitude.
The outfits kept a fair amount of Blue Moon’s original funky concept while turning the hanbok into something more casual.
Each member tried on her own outfit and smiled happily, clearly liking it.
I had a slightly different opinion, though.
Together with the stylist who had caused trouble with those sequin outfits before, I carefully examined Malcolm’s hanbok.
The stylist was acting like an overly enthusiastic clothing-store employee, eagerly presenting each piece while practically bowing to me.
Compared to how she had behaved during the sequin incident, she was a completely different person.
“So... what do you think? Do you like them?”
I took the outfit she handed me and felt around different parts of it.
“The lining is a little wrinkled.”
I turned the inside of the hanbok outward and showed it to her.
The folds from when it had first been shipped were still clearly visible.
In other words, the material wrinkled almost like paper.
“Since it’s hanbok, they need stiff fabric like this to maintain the overall volume of the outfit. And these are stage costumes too.”
They were custom-planned outfits, so they were basically disposable.
If we managed them properly and put on a good stage, there would probably be no reason to wear them again.
Wrinkling itself wasn’t the real issue.
The bigger problem was that the inner lining had deliberately been made rough so it would hold its shape.
“I understand that, but won’t this scrape their skin really easily?”
“That’s true, but we can’t exactly add another layer underneath.”
I kept rubbing the inside of the fabric.
It was rough enough to feel almost like hemp cloth.
If it were worn for a long time, friction would probably wear down the surface and make it softer.
But by then, it would probably lose its stiffness too.
“〈Shooting〉 has especially big and fast movements, so they could get hurt. And once they sweat and their skin softens, it’ll be even easier for them to get cuts.”
Like the stylist said, we couldn’t simply add more lining or tear the whole thing out.
The lining had a purpose.
Without it, the outfit would completely sag and end up looking like some ancient Greek quilted robe.
“Do you have any Vaseline?”
“What? Vaseline?”
While raising Victory, I had made them wear plenty of cheap clothes.
The hanbok we had received this time wasn’t low-quality, but it had the same problem when it came to the rough lining.
Of course, I had my own trick for dealing with that.
Vaseline.
I took the Vaseline the stylist handed me and generously spread it across the shoulder area of the lining.
Applying Vaseline could help prevent injuries.
It also kept pieces of fabric from catching against each other and tearing.
If repair shops had WD-40, then my practice room had Vaseline.
That was the idea.
“Even if they sweat during the performance and some of it starts running, it shouldn’t show. I’m not coating the whole thing anyway.”
Putting Vaseline on rough fabric wasn’t some brilliant idea.
It was one of those simple solutions anyone could think of.
But thinking of it and actually knowing from experience whether it worked were two completely different things.
Before discovering Vaseline, I had tried putting bandages on their shoulders.
I had tried cutting out only the troublesome section.
I had even tried sanding the fabric down to soften it.
From my experience, out of all those methods, Vaseline worked best.
“Wow! I can’t believe we get to come to Music Bang Bang again!”
Serin looked as excited as the top student in school going on a field trip.
For Blue Moon, this was a studio they had visited exactly once during their debut and never returned to afterward.
For me, though, if I counted the time I had come here to photograph Evilis before receiving Daehun’s call, this place was practically another workplace.
The audience seats were already packed with fans.
I had planned to point out Blue Moon’s fandom, Apollo, if I spotted any of them, but I couldn’t see any yet.
After the stage check, groups usually sat in their waiting rooms for a while until a PD came around and told them their assigned performance time.
Come to think of it, none of these people could even go home for the holiday.
Everyone here was working hard.
“Apparently, New Eight decided to go ahead with covering Astra’s song like they originally planned. I was secretly hoping they’d perform ours, but I guess they didn’t have enough time.”
“Oh, really? That’s okay! As long as our own stage is perfect, that’s enough.”
Aran said that.
Blue Moon were the ones who had been forced to prepare everything at the last minute, yet she didn’t complain even as a joke.
“When I tried this on yesterday, the shoulder area was really scratchy. But it doesn’t hurt now?”
“I put Vaseline on it. Don’t touch it too much or it’ll come off.”
“Whoa, really? It’s super soft!”
I literally just told you not to touch it too much.
The members rubbed the shoulder area with their hands and admired it.
Vaseline was supposed to be applied to skin, but when spread over fabric, it made the surface feel smooth, almost as if it had been neatly coated.
Youngchae was also rubbing the shoulder area of her hanbok.
But unlike the others, she didn’t look particularly impressed.
Sure, Vaseline wasn’t exactly some amazing innovation.
Still, she looked like something else was bothering her.
“Youngchae, what’s wrong? Is something bothering you?”
“No. Nothing like that.”
She thought for a moment, then spoke.
“I really liked our hanbok before, but now that we’re here, it doesn’t feel special anymore. I wish we were the only ones wearing it. It’s kind of disappointing.”
“You guys are the reason there’s a hanbok craze right now. You should be proud.”
Youngchae didn’t look particularly interested in being proud.
“What are the sponsorship conditions on these outfits? Are we allowed to alter them?”
“Hm? Yeah, we can. But what do you mean by alter them?”
She said she wanted to customize them so they would look different from the other idols.
“Sure. As long as you can finish in time.”
“Can I really try it?”
The other members exchanged confused glances after hearing Youngchae.
Youngchae remodeling the outfits.
Out of all the members, Youngchae had the best sense of style.
There was a good chance she had a special talent for fashion.
These were outfits they had to wear onstage today.
So yes, letting her modify them was an extremely risky idea.
But her suggestion reminded me of the strategy for success I had temporarily forgotten.
We couldn’t succeed using ordinary methods.
Blue Moon had to stand out.
They had to compete by looking special.
Just as Youngchae said, hanbok had become far too common on this episode of Music Bang Bang.
Which meant it was time for us to move one step further away from ordinary hanbok.
“Go ahead. Do whatever you want.”
“How much is ‘whatever I want’?”
“Whatever~ you want.”
