Saying Goodbye to EXO's Boy Who Cried Wolf Concept Shop, Part 1

After six months, SM Entertainment has finally announced that EXO's Boy Who Cried Wolf concept shop in Gangnam will officially close its doors in February. I got to visit the store on my recent trip to Seoul, right before they changed the decorations for the holidays, and I thought I'd share the boatload of photos I took of the place.

Kpop boyband of the moment EXO (or more like SM Entertainment's Creative Directors and Marketing Managers, I suppose - what I wouldn't give to get their jobs!) collaborated with popular Korean street brands like Liful and Peace, Love and Understanding to create Boy Who Cried Wolf, a concept store that sells clothing and merchandise in line with EXO's album, XOXO. In keeping with the album's "school" concept, the shop is setup as such, with a gym, a cafeteria, a library, a classroom, a principal's office, and a dormitory area. The clothes and accessories sold in the store reflect EXO's street style (and expensive taste - the stuff at Boy Who Cried Wolf do not come cheap).

I loved the whole idea of Boy Who Cried Wolf and how well it tied together with the concept behind EXO's promotions last year. SM Entertainment seems to have some pretty brilliant individuals working with them to have come up with such solid concepts for their groups in 2013. You can check out an interesting interview with Min Heejin, SM Entertainment's Visual and Art Director here, but I'm quoting what she said about EXO's winning concept last year below because I think it explains the context around Boy Who Cried Wolf better:

How is EXO’s recent comeback’s ‘Growl’ concept?
Street is the primary part of the concept. The moment I heard the song, I was sure it had to unwind with a school uniform. School uniforms and street looks probably don’t match, but the way they fit sentimentally made me pay attention to it. First of all, the first official album concept was unraveled largely at a school. And so, the hakwon (private educational institute) reference was drawn out with notebooks and graduation photos for the first album, and extended it to the streets for the next song. Like linking young boys’ daily lives going from school to after school in one album. I wanted to show this group EXO’s image in a friendly, yet individualistic, way through this threaded drawing.

Anyway, enough about the marketing geekery. The other main reason why I was dying to go to Boy Who Cried Wolf was obviously because of the fangirling! Take a virtual tour of Boy Who Cried Wolf with the photos below!

The Common Room and the Cafeteria:

BWCW had photos of the EXO boys literally everywhere. The Common Room displayed clothes while The Cafeteria was a real cafe that sold food named after the EXO members (hahaha). I didn't try the food though because I was pretty sure they would be overpriced and would taste average at best (even if the Cafe Latte was named after my favorite member).

The Gym

Downstairs from the Cafeteria was the Gym, where you could find lockers signed and doodled on by each of the EXO members. I forgot to mention that EXO visited BWCW before it opened and pretty much vandalized the entire place with their doodles and signatures - but every EXO fan already knows that, right?