Late at night on August 18, a topic titled “It’s just that Kim Chae-won loves Winter” was published on the Korean forum Pann Nate, drawing significant attention with over 158,000 views as of August 19.
The topic in question compiled various images of aespa’s Winter and LE SSERAFIM’s Chaewon, showing strong resemblances between the two’s styling – from hairstyle to exact hair colors.
As Chaewon’s style always happens later, many suspect that HYBE is having the LE SSERAFIM member copy Winter on purpose.
As a result, criticisms start to pour in, with most insisting that the similarities are too eerie to be considered mere coincidences.
Below are some comments from Korean netizens:
- There was no other case where specific members overlapped like that, so we can’t say that all idols do these styles…
- Some say that all idols have the same style. However, there are unique styles like the different hime cut and bun combination and the oddly-placed bleached hair…
- It’s just impossible to defend this level of copying anymore…
- There’s something seriously wrong with HYBE… to copy another person to this level is weird as hell…
- All of this really resemble Winter to the point it’s creepy
