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It’s hard to overstate the power of Baekhyun. The multi-talented singer and dancer, who first broke onto the scene as a member of EXO (the K-pop phenomenon last seen closing the 2018 Winter Olympics), has a social following in the millions (12.6 million on Instagram alone) that is incredibly engaged. In January, for instance, he posted a filtered snap of a corn streusel muffin on a white plate, and the vegan bakery immediately sold out its entire stock; so did the platemaker. Soon after, he appeared in a video wearing a nondescript white long-sleeve tee; it too sold out within hours. Now, a new label is smartly tapping into that influence by appointing him to his own brand: Privé by BBH, which will launch July 1 with an initial six-piece collection of unisex streetwear, to be followed by monthly drops.
The project began last year when New York and L.A.–based fashion editor and stylist Danyl Geneciran came onto Privé as brand director; rather than find a famous face to blindly endorse the clothes, he wanted a true collaborator. “I really wanted an artist to be hands on and really committed to being part of the brand,” he says. During his time as fashion editor for L’Officiel, he worked closely with SM Entertainment, the Korean entertainment company that manages EXO, and thought to reach out to them (admittedly, also imagining Baekhyun’s bandmate Chanyeol, a vocal fashion fan)—they immediately came back and suggested Baekhyun, now Privé’s co-creative director. Their first meeting took place in October at SM’s HQ in Seoul. Baekhyun arrived in head to toe Supreme, save for a pair of Balenciaga sneakers—“and that’s when I saw the fit,” Geneciran says. “His personal style.”
“Lately, I’d been thinking that I’d like to wear clothes that my thoughts have gone into,” Baekhyun tells Vogue. “And so, I was so incredibly excited to collaborate with Privé—because I too love streetwear, I wanted to make street clothes!” The star describes his own style as hewing to easy basics that still catch the eye—his ideal summer outfit, for instance, is a white tee and jeans—ergo his preference for the simple sweats that characterize most streetwear. “When you imagine comfy and cool clothes, it’s definitely streetwear, isn’t it?” he adds, smiling.
The initial release will feature six classic pieces—three of them are previewed exclusively in the slideshow, below, with design notes—followed by monthly capsules of another six to 10 pieces each, which will include more complex items like bomber jackets or long puffers. The collection took shape over a period of several months, where Geneciran hovered between China, Manila, and Tokyo and flew to Seoul when summoned during Baekhyun’s spare hours, of which there are few. At first, Geneciran recalls, Baekhyun appeared nervous. “He was telling me he had never been to any Fashion Weeks, he didn’t know how to sew or anything like that,” Geneciran says. Thus he put painstaking thought into every detail—studying magazines and runway images, even bringing his own sketches to meetings. In Baekhyun’s view, the Privé line is “cotton, the color white, no prints,” he says. “I chose cotton because it’s comfortable. The reason why I chose white for the hoodie and tees is that the Privé logo was so pretty, I thought a white background with just the logo right there was the best.”
The Privé team also gave Baekhyun a Contax II film camera, and the photographs on the pieces—self-portraits, contact sheets—were shot by his own hand. Other items feature his handwriting, as well as phrases and lyrics of his. “I’ve been taking pictures and drawing favorite words of mine,” Baekhyun says, referencing one of the central themes of the capsule—the word fearless, which appears in several forms. “I’ve been making and looking at logos too, and coming up with a lot of ideas!” Baekhyun adds. “Since a lot of my thoughts have been incorporated, everything has been so much fun.”
In a sense, the collection serves a second function as personalized merch, reflected in the affordable price range: tees for $35, sweaters for $45, crewneck sweatshirts for $75, and hoodies for $90, decided in part with his young fanbase in mind. “We don’t want to consider ourselves as a competitor to other high-end fashion street brands,” Geneciran says. “We’re just a street brand that’s commercially available and accessible to everyone.”
Privé by BBH will be available July 1 on priveny.com.
