History of K-Pop: Tennis Skirts
Tennis skirts have become a beloved staple of K-Pop. The skirt can be as easy to spot in a newly released music video as it is in fan dance covers and TikTok videos. The easy to wear and versatile piece of clothing is popular with both K-Pop idols and their fans—the pleats on the skirt give it a lot of space and make it easy to dance in. Nowadays, shopping for them is easy and they come in a variety of colors.
But when did the tennis skirt first make its way into K-Pop? In 2016, IZE Magazine wrote that tennis skirts have become something of a uniform for girl groups. The writer also notes that in the week of December 12 to 17 in 2016, tennis skirts were a fixture of more than 44% of girl groups who made appearances in South Korea’s major music shows on Mnet, MBC, and SBS.
Below, we’ll look at five girl groups in recent K-Pop history that are defined by the presence of the tennis skirt in their imagery. Starting with f(x), we’ll look at AOA’s “Heart Attack,” I.O.I’s “Pick Me,” TWICE’s “TT,” and finally GFRIEND’s “Rough.”
f(x)
f(x)’s comeback in 2013 with the song “Rum Pum Pum Pum” is widely considered to be the starting point of tennis skirts in K-Pop. Though they certainly existed before, that same article quotes an unnamed clothing industry leader crediting the SM Entertainment girl group comeback with an increase in sales of the clothing item in South Korea. The skirt became affectionately known as the Krystal skirt, owing to the fact that she was wearing the skirt in many performances of “Rum Pum Pum Pum.”
Interestingly, the music video and subsequent comeback stage do not feature tennis skirts at all. In the music video, the members are seen wearing an array of quirky and colorful outfits as well as that iconic red plaid look. Their comeback stage recreates that plaid look in which Victoria wears a flared skirt that looks similar to a tennis skirt but isn’t quite that.
It wasn’t until their performance on Inkigayo three days after their comeback on July 28 that the girls began to sport updated schoolgirl looks in navy tennis skirts and short sleeved white button downs. Subsequent performances saw the group adopt the schoolgirl look more religiously, wearing tennis skirts in white, red, pink, and even a cute Easter yellow.
The latter days of a promotional period are known to include artistic direction that is a little less closely aligned with the said comeback’s concept. This could be said about the way that tennis skirts found their way into f(x)’s costume repertoire. It wasn’t until the concept’s main looks were exhausted that the classic skirt became a staple. And now looking back, it was a silently pivotal point in girl group wardrobing.
AOA
In 2014, AOA was riding on the success of their breakthrough single “Miniskirt.” Ironically though, their promotions for “Miniskirt” were not when they began to wear tennis skirts—that would begin in 2015 with the chart topping earworm “Heart Attack.” The song’s visual concept was sporty and fresh. On the EP cover, the group is seen wielding lacrosse sticks and in promotional photographs, the members can be seen sitting on a green tennis court wearing matching white and navy tennis skirt ensembles. This would translate to their performance stages, where members would wear tennis skirts, too.
However, AOA’s comeback stage on June 25, 2015 on M!COUNTDOWN does not include tennis skirt outfits. Instead the members opted to wear a pink and white hot pant ensemble accessorized with knee high socks. Their other performances also seldom show the members dressed in tennis skirts. Early in their comeback promotions, they were seen wearing other sport adjacent clothing such as non-pleated tennis skirts and athletic dresses. When they perform the song in later years, their outfits stray further away from the initial sport concept and they are seen wearing dressier looking outfits.
Interestingly though, both the music video and promotional picture sets for the EP heavily feature the tennis skirt! The “Heart Attack” music video is spliced with several scenes of the girls playing lacrosse, at the school cafeteria, in classrooms, and in classic performance scenarios. In retrospect, perhaps the music video was an attempt at recreating a typical American high school scene. Whether the girls were on the field or in the classroom, the tennis skirt was front and center, solidifying its place as the go-to for sporty and schoolgirl concepts.
I.O.I
In 2016, the first of its kind group making reality TV show Produce 101 swept the nation and almost every K-Pop consuming household around the globe. The show works on the concept of young, still in school, talented trainees making their debut, so of course it is only obvious that the tennis skirt would be as common as air on the show. Week after week the teenage female trainees could be seen donning pink and grey tennis skirt-blazer combination outfits. Of course, promotional material for the show also had every participant wearing tennis skirts. If tennis skirts could have done product placement, this would have been the show to do it in.
This then trickles down to the ending of the show, where the song “Pick Me” is officially released as the first single of the newly formed group I.O.I, composed of the winners of the show Produce 101. Once the group debuted, tennis skirts were also present in their most popular music videos such as “Very Very Very” and “Whattaman.” Less popular songs like “Crush” also featured the skirt. Though the concepts of these three songs were very different, stylists and coordinators managed to somehow include the tennis skirt in all of them. In the sexy brassy song “Whattaman,” the opening scene of the music video shows leader Nayoung walking towards a table in what is none other than a baby blue tennis skirt. Perhaps it was a unifying visual thread for the group, or perhaps this is where the evolution of tennis skirts from sporty and schoolgirl to multipurpose begins.
TWICE
One of the reigning girl groups of the current time, TWICE’s single from their October 2016 third extended release “TT” astounded viewers with its cute Halloween theme. Although much of the music video is the members in Halloween attire, they do find time to come together in group scenes wearing matching blue and white outfits. Several members had on skirts that had elements of a tennis skirt sewn into it. This is truly the beginning of the tennis skirt becoming a multipurpose article of clothing.
Their promotional material for Twicecoaster did not include many obvious signs of tennis skirts, but there were pleated skirts that could perhaps loosely be described as tennis skirt-like. After the success of “TT,” TWICE continued to dominate the charts. It wouldn’t be until their 2017 song “Signal” that we’d see them don the iconic skirts again. This time, the skirts would again be more subdued in it’s form, doing well to highlight the song’s strange-yet-cute alien concept and not stealing the show.
Interestingly, the music video for their debut song “Cheer Up” is a sporty video that is the perfect setting for the tennis skirt to make an appearance, but it does no such thing. Rather than playing into the often used clothing article, stylists opted to go for a less predictable tomboy look that featured the members wearing shorts.
By 2017, the skirt had become a symbol within K-Pop communities that tied fans to their favorite artists. Yes, it was easy to dance in and versatile, but it was beginning to become a little overplayed. Girl group costume coordinations that succeeded could use articles of clothes that were very familiar to fans (like the tennis skirt) while dressing them in a way that felt new and fresh. TWICE’s use of the skirt in “Signal” is the perfect example.
GFRIEND
GFRIEND burst onto the scene in 2015 with the song “Glass Bead” that garnered them many rookie awards. The music video for the song is a picture of the typical 2015 girl group, opening with the members walking into school in navy tennis skirts before the scene is quickly cut to a dance routine in pale yellow tennis skirts. The video for their following release in 2016, “Rough,” also featured the girls in pintucked navy tennis skirt outfits. The group were known for their fresh looks and challenging dance routines, as well as their decision to make music that strayed away from overtly sexy concepts. It seems like the tennis skirt was a great way for them to do this.
However, by the time 2017 rolled around, the group had pretty much retired their hardworking skirts. This is also in line with the explosion of new girl groups that were pursuing girl crush concepts and forgoing the innocent skirts with more adventurous and artful clothing. In their music video for “Love Whisper” off their fifth extended play Parallel, the group began to experiment with their visuals and storytelling. The playful, magical forest-esque theme allowed for more adventurous clothing to be used in place of the tennis skirts.
END OF AN ERA?
TWICE recently came back with retro-bop “I Can’t Stop Me” as did GFRIEND with “MAGO.” Though TWICE doid find a way to incorporate the skirt in their music video as well as their promotional material (Nayeon and Dahyun wear different amalgamations of tennis skirts on their EP cover and in the video), it is notably absent from the rest of the video, which is struck with a stronger retro vibe. GFRIEND’s music video for “MAGO” makes no mention of the skirt at all, opting for powerful and sultry looks, though Sowon sports a stray robin blue tennis skirt in the full length album Walpurgis Night’s promotional pictures. Unfortunately, because f(x), I.O.I, and AOA are either no longer active or on hiatus, it is harder to pinpoint these groups’ costume growth.
Other popular girl groups of the present day such as MAMAMOO and BLACKPINK either don’t or rarely feature the skirt too. When the skirt is present, it is usually part of a larger vision rather than being the vision. Who knew you could measure the passing of time in a piece of clothing? Between 2015 and 2020, fashions have certainly changed and so music has reflected (or maybe led) that. Though the tennis skirt is no longer front and center, it is still a mainstay in fan communities and girl group concepts, its comfort and ease making it an obvious and easy sartorial choice. And with the rise of powerful, show stopping looks, fans especially have found ways to upcycle this wardrobe staple to reflect trends of the current times.