Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Polham the Justifiable

Pop Quiz:

Fill in the blank: Polham the Justifable is ___________.

a. the name of an emperor or the Byzantine Empire
b. the name of a Korean clothing brand
c. the name of one of the Avignon Pope during the 2nd Great Schism

If you chose "A" you'd be wrong! Polham the Justifiable, or just Polham is the name of one of the "fake" Korean brands. Polham is marketed as a western brand with White models, English galore in signs and slogans, but it is 100% Korean.

Below is their store in Gohyeon. This storefront used to host a Popeye's Chicken & Biscuits until it shut down and was converted to a retail clothing store in less than two weeks.



The man above stands in stark contrast to the "image" the Polham is attempting to project. Polham's clothes and marketing techniques seemed to have been ripped from the pages of Abercombie & Fitch's play book.

Pale, white, beautiful people are the norm in Polham advertising.



Seriously, what do these shirts mean:
"Bones and Fragment."
"Bones and Fragment The Mortality of the Soul."

5 comments:

  1. Wow, that might be the first time I've heard someone drop a reference to the Avignon pope.

    And I've been to Avignon.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Why do you have a problem with "fake" Korean brands. It almost sounds like you want Koreans to still wear hanboks. Western (NOT American!) fashion is now the norm in most parts of the world so its not abnormal for Korean business owners to want to appeal to their customers by 'westerinising' their stores as THAT is what their young Korean customers prefer!

    ReplyDelete
  3. read my response to this readers questions here:
    http://joshuainkorea.blogspot.com/2007/06/response-to-critical-comment-on-blog.html

    ReplyDelete
  4. I just went to Korea this summer and the friend I received a Polham shirt, and although I had never heard of the brand I guessed it was a name brand. I have to say, though I don't care for Abercrombie in the US, I found I really like Polham! Its pretty inexpensive in comparison to similar american brands.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Yes! And you can buy with confidence knowing that every won you spend at Polham goes to support the starving white models in their ads. ;)

    ReplyDelete

I appreciate comments. If you have a personal message to me, then e-mail would be best.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...