Gou Getter: what's next for South Korean DJ and fashion designer Peggy Gou

Turntables

Meanwhile, Gou discovered the DJ scene through her boyfriend at the time – a DJ from whom she learned beatmatching and digging – and her love of going to dance clubs like London's Plastic People every week weekend. Before long, her growing network of friends in the music industry prompted her to try her hand behind the turntables, which led to her very first concert at Soho club Cirque Le Soir.

"Honestly, I don't remember the crowds or their reactions, because I spent my head all night in the blender, too scared to watch anywhere," she recalls. A few years later, she became the first Korean female DJ to play at the famous Berlin techno club Berghain.

Even with five EPs and concerts at world festivals like Coachella and Glastonbury to his credit, Gou still feels nervous before each show. "For me, my career is like a sport, and playing sports should not be comfortable," she says. "You have to push yourself to the point of being uncomfortable to feel like you've done a good workout." So I think it's good that I always get the butterflies, or it means that I don't care anymore and have to find something else that gives me butterflies. "

See also: 10 best music festivals in the world worth seeing in 2020

Inimitable style

When NGG came knocking, prophesying that they "had seen Virgile in (her)," she said, the idea of ​​creating her own fashion brand made her just as nauseous, which was reason enough for her to try. In their first discussions, Gou said that she just wanted to create clothes that she would wear. At the same time, she found it difficult to describe her own style – until she discovered that her signature look had become so recognizable among clubbers and social media enthusiasts that some of them between them wore Peggy Gou costumes on Halloween.

"A lot of people that year wore a tropical shirt, sunglasses and a stuffed giraffe," she says. So, by popular demand, she imagined Cuban silk shirts with haetae prints, a mythical Korean creature resembling a tiger, smiling faces of acid house music and two-piece pajama or denim sets like those which she preferred for festivals.

To celebrate the underexposed parts of his culture, Gou decided to use Asian silk fabrics for some of his logo-printed sets, as well as traditional Korean patterns. And she started singing in Korean on her songs, inventing her own genre, "K-House". Her first video, for Starry Night, directed by her partner, Jonas Lindstroem, depicts various Korean communities – from taekwondo disciples to ladies in hanbok – all bursting into modern dance.

"I was afraid that people might not like it at first, but I still believe you don't know it before trying," she said. "And now it's become my signature. I see so many Asian artists trying to copy what Europeans are doing, but there are so many beautiful things about Korea that I want people to watch, think about and enjoy. "

Some I do not know what

Like many people that their contemporaries deem "cool", there is something decidedly not calculated with each movement of Gou. She, like Abloh, is able to seamlessly direct her fan base – the "Goucci Gang" – of over a million (she has 1.4 million followers on Instagram and that counts) to all initiatives which she will then choose.

“I never think of forging a style or an aesthetic; it's just my taste, which I like, ”she said, shrugging. “I know what I'm good at and what I'm not. If I know I can't kill him, I will continue. "

It's already turned out to be an eventful year, with Gou building a recording studio in her newly purchased house in Berlin, where she will be producing a new album, before starring Coachella in April. A second drop for Kirin is in preparation and she has also just signed with her dream label, XL Recordings, which represents the tastes of Adele and Radiohead. All of this, it should be noted, happened without a manager ("You probably already know that about me, but I don't like being told what to do," she says. ).

But first, she canceled the next shows in Vietnam, Singapore and Thailand in January to take three weeks off in Phuket.

"I'm still trying to learn to meditate," she says. Even her boyfriend deplores his inability to sit still. "I always think about tomorrow or next week. But I learned that I have to go out to creatively create space. "

As she is summoned by the photographer and our conversation comes to an end, I tell her that there is a rumor that she has launched her own line of Kirin skin care or household items , to which she radiates and responds timidly: “Why not? I'm always looking for improvements. "It shows a humble vacuum cleaner leaning in the corner." I think I can make a better vacuum cleaner than that. "

Peggy Gou: DJ, fashion designer and innovator of the void? Why not? The labels are overvalued.

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