Fashion King 패션왕 is the thirtieth drama I've seen. Fashion King brings together two of my favorite female celebrities: Shin Se Kyung and SNSD's Kwon Yu Ri. Fashion King would become the debut drama for Kwon Yu Ri. The male leads, Yoo Ah In and Lee Je Hoon, were relatively new to me. Nevertheless, Fashion King was a drama I had a lot of interest in. A portion of Fashion King's footage was shot in New York City. As a native New Yorker, I was very excited to see how my home city would be featured in Fashion King. With both actresses and my hometown together, it was absolutely inevitable that I add Fashion King to my list of watched dramas.
Lee Gayoung (Shin Se Kyung) is a poor but talented fashion designer who gets accepted into the prestigious New York Fashion School. Gayoung meets Kang Younggul (Yoo Ah In), the owner of a small factory in the Great East Gate market making fake designer clothes. Younggul allows her to live in the shop and work. One day, Younggul finds out Gayoung was accepted to the New York Fashion School on a full scholarship when she checks her email on his computer. Younggul gives her some money to buy a plane ticket to go to New York City and attend the school. A day later, Younggul gets into trouble and escapes on a fishing boat. A mutiny occurs onboard and Younggul barely escapes to America, making his way to New York to find Gayoung. However, when Gayoung arrives at the New York Fashion School, only to find that someone rejected her acceptance under her name. Gayoung meets Jung Jaehyuk (Lee Je Hoon) who uses his connections to help give Gayoung another chance to attend the New York Fashion School. Jaehyuk was also Younggul's high school classmate. Due to their difference in social status, Jaehyuk and Younggul dislike one another very much. Jaehyuk learns that because of the mutiny, Younggul is being sought out by both the Korean and American police. Jaehyuk advises Younggul to turn himself in and not risk Gayoung losing her scholarship. After being tipped off, Younggul is arrested and brought back to Korea for his involvement in the mutiny, being sentenced to jail for a year. For housing Younggul, Gayoung gets deported back to Korea. After a failed attempt to expand his fashion brand overseas, Jaehyuk returns to Korea with his ex-girlfriend Choi Anna (Kwon Yu Ri), an ambitious fashion designer whose skills are unacknowledged in the fashion industry. A year later, Younggul is released and reunites with Gayoung. They decide to form Young-Young Apparel together, with plans to fulfill their dreams and challenge the fashion industry.
Fashion King has some similarities to Cinderella Man and yet both dramas are very different. Both dramas depict the rise of aspiring fashion designers from the Great East Gate market. However, the difference between the dramas is that Cinderella Man has a lighter feel to the drama, whereas Fashion King has a dark ambience to the story. Because Younggul and Gayoung come from a poor and low social background, they are constantly being looked down upon by everyone. In fact, when you take a look at every character that has interacted with them, the ones that are truly kind to them are those who have also suffered hardships in order to get by in life. One of those characters is Jung Jaehyuk. There always seems to be an arrogant, pretentious character in every drama. However, I felt Fashion King's Jaehyuk is at a whole new level of self-centeredness. He acts only out of his own self-interest even when helping Gayoung. When Jaehyuk helps Gayoung, he does so with a look of arrogance. Although Jaehyuk claims that he cares about Anna, he is unable to protect her from his parents. Then later Jaehyuk ditches Anna for Gayoung. Younggul is forced to constantly start over from the beginning when being chased by big conglomerates like Jaehyuk's J Fashion. As a result, I found myself really hating Jung Jaehyuk. For a character to already have everything but want more, is just detesable. Lee Je Hoon deserves to be recognized for his acting talents for being able to bring out the arrogant nature of his character. Another interesting topic was when Gayoung learns about the difference between the work ethic between corporate world and small businesses the hard way. Curiosity gets the best of Gayoung despite not listening to Younggul's words. When people get a free ride to a high position in a company, there is guaranteed to be company gossip that can be hurtful. The setup of the four main characters in Fashion King is fairly unique. While the coupling of the main characters is still easy to tell, the initial coupling flips over at one point. I felt that the change was pretty unique in allowing the audience to see which coupling they prefer. Personally, I always have a soft spot for underdogs and I wanted Gayoung to pair up with Younggul. With the way the story unfolded, I did not want Anna and Jaehyuk to be together either. As the story progressed, I was completely baffled at why anyone would want Gayoung and Jaehyuk to be together as a couple. I felt that Jaehyuk continued to be a pretentious jerk from start to finish whereas Younggul tried hard to survive and make something of his life.
Fashion King's soundtrack features some pretty good songs. One of the first songs is "Dream of You 너를 꿈꾸다". SNSD's Seo Hyun also contributed to the soundtrack with "I'll Be Waiting 기다릴게요". "Love Like This 사랑은 이렇게" is another good ballad track from the drama. My favorite is K.Heart's "Standstill 제자리걸음", which has a lot of emotion within the song.
Fashion King is not your typical drama in which you see happy moments such as the main couple going to the beach for fun. Instead, Fashion King does an impressive job in exposing the harsh reality of fashion world. I felt disappointed that fans wanted some typical happy story because Fashion King was growing into a unique drama with how well it portrayed the reality of the fashion industry between designers in large companies and local factories making knockoffs. However, the desire to accurately depict the harsh reality of the fashion industry resulted in one of worst endings to a drama I have ever seen. After the first couple episodes, the drama itself was not progressing in any direction. Despite giving this drama the benefit of the doubt, the ending was absolutely terrible. I felt that Fashion King's ending sends the wrong message to the audience: No matter how hard you try, those in higher power will be the final winner. While I understand that in life, that may be the truth. However, Fashion King was supposedly a story about the rise of young, aspiring fashion designers and the ending failed completely to show that. The chemistry between the four main leads is really great, especially for a rookie actress like Kwon Yu Ri. Nevertheless, the terrible ending is just inexcusable. Although there is some poetic meaning behind the way it ended, Fashion King should have ended with a happier conclusion. In my opinion, this drama completely wasted the talents of the actors and actresses. For those deciding to watch Fashion King, I would suggest proceeding with caution. Fashion King had a lot of potential to be a great drama and had a really good start. However, the ending to the drama is more than enough reason to avoid watching this drama altogether.
