Abstract
Caroline Mniszak, Carrie Yodanis, and Sean Lauer on a Korean coordinating trend and a cross-cultural desire to express interdependence
To mark the 1,000th day of being a couple, South Korean bloggers Park Junhyuk and Kim Chohee posted a picture of themselves with lots of celebratory balloons and, of course, matching clothes. They wore coordinated sweatshirts and white bottoms, hers a skirt and his pants, as they have so many times on their site, “Lover in a Lifetime.” Park and Kim, like many other couples in Asia, match clothes to demonstrate their love and devotion to each other.
The “couple clothes” trend emerged in South Korea in the 1990s and quickly caught on in China and Japan. By the 2000s, the trend had grown into a large-scale industry, with matching and coordinating his-and-hers outfits available for purchase.
It’s not a coincidence that this trend took off in Asian societies, where fitting in is valued over individualism. In her article, “Couples’ Wear in Korea,” design scholar Judy Park concludes that the practice spread when young people noticed their favorite celebrity pairs coordinated their outfits and wanted to be part of the trend. More importantly, they wanted to be part of the trend with someone. In interviews, Park found that men and women emphasized the importance of matching in serious romantic partnerships. When a couple wears matching outfits, it underscores their commitment by demonstrating that they are in love and “‘belong’ to one another.” As Park wrote, “Wearing the looks gave them a sense of belonging, and the feeling of belonging to a relationship was not negative or suffocating in any way, but rather comforting.”
Courtesy Sean Lauer
Courtesy Sean Lauer
This is the kind of trend that makes sense in some contexts, but can seem odd in another. While couple clothes were taking off in Asia, sociologists in western countries were arguing that intimate relationships were becoming individualized; adults were now putting their own identities, goals, and interests before those of the couple. If, in the past, American women and men gave up their individual identities to fulfill socially expected, heteronormative roles, in Alone Together, sociologists Paul R. Amato and colleagues argue that time has flipped the expectation: now individuals can be in relationships without acting as a single, interdependent unit that prioritizes the couple over the individual. Partners can maintain independence and pursue self-fulfillment even within coupled relationships. A coordinated couple outfit visually violates this commitment to individualism and Americans’ larger belief that people are and should be independent and autonomous.
More recently, a popular New York fashion blog, Refinery29, featured a series of posts investigating the practice and meaning of couple clothes. One post described this trend as “the equivalent of making things Facebook official” in South Korea, Japan, and China. Another post, by Connie Wang, concluded that wearing matching clothes was, for straight Korean couples who tend not to use physical public displays of affection, a way to communicate that “they’re on the same team.” Park seemingly confirms this assertion, writing that “couples wear” is more acceptable than “kissing in public” in Asia. Still, the trend can be understood intellectually, but the practice itself remains hard to grasp in an American context.
So blogger Wang decided to explore how she would feel—and how others would react to her—if she and her boyfriend suited up in sync for one week in New York City. In her follow-up post, “Why This Korean Trend Won’t Work in America,” Wang documented their everyday experiences walking around New York in matching shirts, pants, sweaters, shoes, and jackets. On the first day, she reported: “Immediately after we left the apartment, I felt more self-conscious about my outfit than I’ve ever felt in my life. It was like a joke, and like we were in costume instead of in clothes, and I wanted to hide. I’m pretty sure Nathan felt the same way, since he kept breaking away to walk five feet in front, then behind me.”
Wang then considered why she felt so embarrassed. “Dressing alike says, ‘Hey everyone. I really really like my partner, and I’m making it clear to everyone who can see us that he is mine and I am his and please acknowledge our togetherness.’ It felt as gratuitous as making out in the middle of a subway car.” She concluded, if the relationship with another person is “there and solid,” wearing matching clothes is a cringe-inducing, excessive demonstration of couplehood.
During her social experiment, Wang posted photos of the outfits she and Nathan wore on Instagram. Her followers’ responses surprised her: “It’s strange how something that’s fairly basic—two people wearing their normal clothes, but matching each other—can elicit such a strong reaction from people.” Even as people followed Wang’s posts, they made it clear that they would never go for the matching look with their partners: “No way.”
By the end of the week, Wang, like her Instagram followers, was positive that the trend was not for her. Wearing matching clothes could be fun, like dressing up for Halloween, “But as a regular thing?” she said, “No, thank you.” She described a “loss of identity, acquiescing to another’s whims.” On the last day, she confidently asserted, “The only thing I want to match is myself.”
It is unlikely that couple clothes will become the next big thing in the U.S. because that kind of visible togetherness is not part of today’s socially expected and widely accepted rules for how to act when in a relationship. The practice feels uncomfortable and even obnoxious to people. It violates norms as it symbolically suggests a loss of identity and autonomy, and it elicits strong negative reactions from others. There is a trend toward #twinning, which brings attention to the cute practice of matching outfits for parents and small children, little brothers and sisters, and even friends, but matching an intimate partner, except for prom or a wedding, seems strange, not cute.
But are American couples really so individualized? In the U.S., couples might not wear matching outfits regularly, but they share plenty of things with their partners in a practice of proving that they “belong” to one another. As we outlined in our article, “Is Marriage Individualized?,” spouses tend to share a surname, a house or other dwelling, a bed, bank accounts and financial assets, and many of the same friends and social activities. These common practices put the couple before the individual in all sorts of ways: sharing a home, and therefore living in the same place, can limit a partner’s job opportunities, while sharing bank accounts can limit partners’ freedom in how they spend money. Even spending large amounts of time together limits each partner’s ability to develop their own personal networks and interests.
Connie Wang and her boyfriend, Nathan, dressed in couple clothes for her Refinery29.com series, November 2014.
Erin Yamagata, Refinery29.com
Yet these couple behaviors, even as they limit individual identity and freedoms, are cultural expectations for committed and loving U.S. couples. Couples may even feel uncomfortable not sharing these things—at least in part because of the negative reactions others might have to their “unconventional” choices. Should couples live apart, sleep in separate beds, or vacation separately, for example, others may very well express skepticism about their “real” commitment. Not only that, the individuals within the couple may doubt the strength of their bond.
From this perspective, maybe couple clothes aren’t so hard to understand and maybe Americans aren’t as independent as we would like to believe. Although we define ourselves as individuals who choose to be in relationships, our behaviors often prove our interdependence. Couple clothes—what seems like an odd or even humorous trend from Asia—may not be so foreign after all.