Since I already brought up the word “Another” printed on BoYoung’s sweatshirt, I might as well give you what I think about her clothes.

Typically, I don’t pay attention to costumes in a kdrama. The work of costume designers is often overlooked because when they do their job well, their end product, that is, the costumes, seamlessly blend in with the rest of production design, like scenery, lighting, and props. Unless a viewer is CONSCIOUSLY searching for an overall scheme, most viewers do NOT realize what they’re looking at.

And that’s what I’ve been doing with Poem a Day. I’ve been tracking BoYoung’s clothes since I realized that she was wearing the same turtleneck on special occasions.

I think her costumes is deliberately picked to INDICATE her state of mind, and her state of relationships. Her clothes are ONE of the reasons I’ve found her relationship with Dr. Ye jarring and disconnected. I’ll show you why in a bit…

Let’s go over some of the ways I found BoYoung’s clothes creating VISUAL CONNECTION between characters. This list isn’t going to be exhaustive because that would be exhausting for an OCD person like me. 🙂

Episode 1: Flowers that Bloom When Shaken
This is the episode when BoYoung and MinHo reunited after years (five years?) of non-communication.

The last time they met each other, she bopped him on the head like a whack-a-mole. She was dressed in pink sweatshirt. He was in blue.

Based on the rest of the flashback, there were two other costumes that I kept an eye on: The pretty feminine pink and white sweater set she wore in the library,

and this red hoodie with a black and white turtleneck. We all recognize this as her outfit when he dumped her.

Here comes the interesting part.

She was wearing the same turtleneck on the day they met again.

The turtleneck was a little bit worn (see how it was made to look stretched around the neck? lol. No director would have allowed that sloppiness unless it was meant to be).

Then, when she was singing karaoke, she just “happened” to wear a glittery RED suit.

Do you see the visual impact of BoYoung’s costume? Same black and white striped turtleneck with a red jacket on top.

She looked pathetic singing all by herself. The rest of the company knew of the hospital administration’s rejection of her Employee Award. She alone was oblivious of the terrible truth.

She must have looked just as pathetic to MinHo when she was all eager and excited to hear a love confession when in truth, MinHo was going to reject her.

There are the kind of visual cues that subconsciously influence our perception of MinHo and BoYoung. We feel doubly sorry for her, and doubly angry at him.

Episode 2: Every Moment is Like a Flower Bud

In this “Apple incident” Episode, their clothes didn’t match but she was wearing a similar looking black and white striped turtleneck. She looked pathetic again as she sobbed her feelings of inadequacy and inferiority.

Episode 3: I Like You

Here, both both MinHo and Dr. Ye wore a similar brown checked coat. And she looked good with both men; her outfit matched either one.

Oddly enough, because the two men were wearing similar color and style, I noticed their stark contrast.

MinHo teased her because she was drunk while Dr. Ye lectured her on not getting drunk. Considering that MinHo only fooled around with people he liked, it told us plain and simple that, despite his denials, he actually liked BoYoung. He admired her clumsiness.

As for Dr. Ye, he couldn’t get rid of her fast enough because she was embarrassing him.

Episode 4: Standing Close

In this Episode, MinHo and BoYoung looked like they were wearing coordinated outfits. He had a black hoodie on while she had a white hoodie on. Dr. Ye, if you must know, was wearing a jacket under his yellow vest.

But the important part here in this episode was the jacket trope. He lent her his jacket, and she looked warm and comfy in it.

Episode 5: It’s Okay If You Don’t Love Me

This episode is interesting because it actually signaled the start of BoYoung’s emotional regression. In her “crush” for Dr. Ye, she regressed into a silly child given to silly fantasies.

The Swing Scene was a giveaway. I told you in an earlier post that right after her Swing scene, the camera focused on a portrait of a girl on a swing. The colors of the swing and coat were reversed in the painting.

Here’s the painting.

This painting is symbolic of her childish infatuation. She became prone to embarrassing flights of imagination, like marriage proposals, hands tucked in his pocket, cotton candies and dance numbers.

This was also the time she started wearing demure, frilly collar shirts like this. This style reminds me of a Per Pan collar.

The Peter Pan collar is named after the famous children’s book character, Peter Pan, who did NOT want to grow up and wanted to stay a child forever. This collar style became trendy since 1905 when the actress who played Peter Pan on stage wore it.

BoYoung wore this collar when she was treated out to dinner by Dr. Ye as a reward for her assistance. And she wore it again the following night at the dinner with her colleagues celebrating Dr. Park’s child’s first birthday.

Here’s the other Peter Pan collar. lol 

To me, the prim and proper Peter Pan collar is the costume designer’s way of indicating BoYoung’s state of mind and it matches the development of the plot. A

Just as the script called on BoYoung to play on the swing like a girl, and the camera zoomed in on the children’s painting of a girl swinging, her clothes show that BoYoung is reverting back to a young girl.

Episode 6: Family

This is the birthday scene. And here BoYoung is back to her normal self. This is how she dresses up when she’s being herself and her family.

More importantly, this was the other occasion when BoYoung wore that black and white striped turtleneck. In a flashback, we’re shown that she had worn it on his birthday, and she matched it with a white cardigan with buttons shaped like red hearts. Awwww….

To be honest, this was the moment when I realized that the costume designer wasn’t just letting BoYoung put on just random clothes from the the wardrobe department. Their was an overall drama composition here.

Episode 7: The Cricket and I

The day following the celebration of MinHo’s birthday, she was back to her casual outfit. Just like her casual outfit, her lack of decorum was on full display when she jumped on MinHo’s back. Remember, I told you all about the cricket move. lol.

The following day, when she and MinHo volunteered to help Dr. Ye, MinHo was very surprised to see her pretty self.

She looked like a prim and proper, elegant miss here beside MinHo’s James Dean look. If you’re too young to know who James Dean is, James Dean is THE American cultural icon of a bad boy. lol. All my brothers had to have his signature leather jacket.

The funny thing about this Episode is that none of the Ye Liner wondered how Dr. Ye reacted upon seeing BoYoung. The director only highlight MinHo’s reaction to seeing BoYoung. Interesting, right? Considering he’s only the “second” male lead. We should also get the first male lead’s reaction.  /snort

During the outing, Dr. Ye reminded me of Inspector Columbo in his drab trench coat. He obviously did NOT consider their museum a date. Sorry, lurking fangirls!  He SHOULD have dressed sharper then. Walking beside the well-dressed BoYoung and MinHo, he looked like an uncle treating out his favorite nephew and his…

 

niece-in-law.

hahaha. #ouch

Episode 8: Point of No Return

Here, she wore this Peter Pan collar again the day after MinHo told her “not to like Ye JaeWook.”

They actually matched here. BTW, did you pay attention tot hat “Lalala” written on her bag? lol. That’s a nice touch from the props director. It didn’t have to be there but they thought of it.

“LaLaLa” means something like, “Whatever. I’m not listening to you.” At this point, BoYoung didn’t want to hear MinHo’s silly excuses about NOT liking her.

She was so upset with him that she was ready for a rebound romance just to prove to MinHo that somebody did AT LEAST like her. To BoYoung that was her Point of No Return. That was her “final straw.” She was fed up with MinHo’s denials.

I also pointed out to you how she looked like a baby chick in her yellow outfit

and that the way she ate her cotton candy reminded Dr. Ye of a small child. That was he smiled at the sight of this little girl.

refer to this post:

In contrast, MinHo never saw BoYoung as a child. He even found her doppelganger.

Episode 9: Height

This episode showed us BoYoung in three sets on clothes. Two were her clothes in her fantasy. This ugly sweater which a sane grown-up would only wear under the influence of a psychedelic drug

and this white dress which reminded me of my niece’s First Holy Communion when she was in second grade.

In both cases, her fantasy dresses didn’t match Dr. Ye’s grown-up outfit.

But BoYoung also wore the most grotesque collar ever that I’m sure this was a spoof. This is called the Puritan collar.  Give this collar a few inches more around the shoulders, and she could easily fly away in this sweater

She didn’t match MinHo here.

Nor did she match Dr. Ye. Wearing his boring trenchcoat again, he looked like a tired ahjussi out for coffee with his niece. They don’t match.

lol. She could have used that collar to cover up her face and hide her embarrassment.

The only time that hideous sweater found a match in this episode was when BoYoung fell asleep on MinHo’s shoulder on the park bench.

Finally, her bold turquoise sweater matched MinHo’s equally bold garnet sweatshirt. Dr. Ye? Nope. Not a match.

Episode 10: It Only Rained After You Left

See here? BoYoung ditched her Peter Pan collars. She finally looked like a grown-up here.

Again, the costume designed did a good job.

Since she was telling Dr. Ye her goodbye in a mature way, she needed clothes that matched.  “There are people who lose their partners, whom they’ve loved and shared their entire lives with. So this is nothing in comparison.” and this was the right costume for her. A frilly Peter Pan collar would have looked out place.

And this jacket she was wearing here is reminiscent of the classic Chanel jacket.

You know how it looks. The classic Chanel jacket is boxy (even cardigan-ish) with a contrast trim around the neck, down the front, around the waist and on the sleeves. It’s collar-less but with two pockets, also trimmed.

BoYoung might be wearing a knock-off jacket but that’s okay. She knocked his socks off with maturity.

The following day she was wearing this “Another” sweatshirt.

I wrote that “On the one hand, it can be interpreted that she’s the “another” man’s wife in that song that NamWon was singing the other day to tease MinHo. “When I first laid my eyes on her, she was another man’s wife…”

But on the other hand, I choose to interpret as a foreshadowing. ‘Another’ means a different one. In context of what Dr. Ye did to her, she’s going to fall for ANOTHER man this time. And this time, it’s going to be the Right Man. lol.”

 

At the beach, she borrowed their gym clothes (I’m not sure if everything belonged solely to MinHo’s or the other boys lent her something, too). But in the end, it was MinHo’s jacket she wore.

… which is kinda intimate when you think about it. It must have smelled of him because he had been wearing it the whole day.

So there you go. My take on BoYoung’s clothes.