It’s just shy of 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday, September 26, and Dior’s Spring/Summer 2024 show is moments from claiming the Paris Fashion Week stage. The street outside the venue is packed with fans, and a black BMW 7 Series’ slow approach incites their feverish cheers. BLACKPINK’s Jisoo emerges from the vehicle with a four-man security detail, wearing the House’s latest designs and waving like a royal to the sea of unfamiliar faces that have been waiting just to catch a glimpse of her brisk excursion to the door from behind a comfortably-distanced barricade. This appearance, coupled with her front-row attendance at the show, garnered $1.6 million USD worth of media impact value (MIV), or online visibility. The echo mentions, or “buzz” surrounding her presence, added an extra $6.5 million USD to the total, according to online data platform Launchmetrics. In fact, Jisoo’s attendance at the Dior show alone earned more MIV than 86% of brands showcasing at the biannual fashion affair.
K-pop is this decade’s international music supernova: as it exploded from Seoul to the world, groups like BTS and BLACKPINK have corralled fandoms that level the likes of those for Beyoncé and Taylor Swift while smashing worldwide release charts and effortlessly selling out stadium tours. At first, the fashion industry was slow to welcome the South Korean stars into its notoriously exclusive circle (BTS only attended their first fashion show for Louis Vuitton in 2021, despite having debuted in 2013 and earned several No. 1 hits in the years prior), but once their inclusion was proven unprecedentedly valuable, the show invites, collaborations and ambassadorships came flowing in abundance.
In the last year alone, Cartier named BTS’ Kim Taehyung (otherwise known as V) its newest global ambassador; Loewe drafted NCT’s Taeyong; Prada enlisted all seven members of ENHYPEN; Valentino signed