Photo Credits: Vogue Korea. Alexander McQueen Source Music

Vogue Korea’s October 2025 issue presents a striking union of artistry, identity, and innovation, with LE SSERAFIM’s Kim Chaewon stepping into the role of muse for Alexander McQueen. The preview itself reads as more than just a fashion feature—it is a layered conversation between one of K-pop’s most intriguing figures and the house of McQueen, long revered for its challenging beauty and exploration of dualities.

Chaewon emerges within this collaboration as both subject and storyteller. In the stills, she is cloaked in silhouettes that are at once commanding and fragile, as though they exist in dialogue with her own persona: delicate in appearance, yet resolute in presence. The tailoring is sharp, angular, almost architectural—yet softened by textural contrasts that hint at something tender beneath.

Alexander McQueen has always been about tension. From its late founder’s vision to its modern iterations, the brand thrives in the space between opposites: nature and machinery, romance and rebellion, life and death. McQueen garments invite their wearer to embody a paradox, to become both warrior and dreamer. In this light, Kim Chaewon is a natural choice. Her artistry within LE SSERAFIM has always carried a similar quality: a soft voice that carries unexpected force, a stage presence that balances grace with strength. In McQueen, she finds not a costume, but an extension of her dual essence.

The preview frames her within shadows that edge toward the surreal, evoking a cinematic power. Her gaze, unwavering yet contemplative, seems to echo McQueen’s philosophy that clothing is never mere adornment but a way of telling truths that words alone cannot capture. The intricate construction of the pieces she wears mirrors the precision of her own artistry—each gesture calculated, each expression imbued with intentionality.

What makes this collaboration particularly poignant is the resonance between Chaewon’s narrative and McQueen’s eternal search for identity in contradiction. She has grown from her early days as a trainee into a leader of an internationally celebrated group, evolving from innocence to authority, from fragility to composure. That very transformation reflects McQueen’s legacy of finding beauty within contrasts. The mix of delicate fabrics with audacious cuts, of vulnerability accentuated by formidable silhouettes, feels less like styling and more like autobiography written in cloth.

This pictorial is not a culmination but a progression. For Chaewon, the Vogue Korea x McQueen feature reveals an artist not content to remain within the confines of music; she now commands the fashion stage as well, extending her influence into global cultural dialogues. For McQueen, the choice of muse reinforces its mission to channel human complexity into form—always unafraid, always unapologetic.

As fans eagerly await the full pictorial release, the preview has already left an imprint. Kim Chaewon no longer simply wears Alexander McQueen; she converses with it, challenges it, and in turn allows it to sharpen the contours of her own evolving story. Here, fashion transcends adornment. It becomes prophecy, performance, and poetry—captured in a single frame.

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