rayabend

I didn’t know a luxury fashion show or a commercial ad could be stretched into 12 hours long — well, apparently that’s exactly what Perfect Crown was all about.

First thing first — the clothes were pretty good (at least to my non-fashionista self), the location shoots were beautiful, and aesthetically the drama looked expensive and polished. But honestly, that’s where all the praise ends.

So let’s dissect this fashion show.

Now let's start with the fashion designer a.k.a. the writer. This has to be one of the sloppiest scripts I’ve seen in a K-drama in recent times. The characters are underwritten, their actions make little to no sense, and the drama itself never knows what it actually wants to be. It neither functions properly as a political drama nor as a rom-com. In simple words, it’s just a badly stitched designer outfit with an expensive tag attached to it — stylish from outside, empty from inside.

Now to our creative director a.k.a. the director.
From start to finish, the direction felt completely lost. The entire focus was on making the actors look aesthetically pleasing instead of making the characters feel believable. Every scene looked visually polished, yet emotionally hollow. A smart director can elevate weak writing through strong guidance and performances, but here that never even seemed to be the intention. The director cared more about presenting beautiful “models (actors)” than actually selling the clothes themselves — i.e the acting, characterization, and story.

Now coming to the models themselves.

Starting with IU — honestly, God knows what happened to her here. She was supposed to be the star model of this entire show, yet she couldn’t even manage a normal runway walk, i.e. basic acting. To put it simply: she was just bad here. If IU had put even bare minimum effort and conviction into grounding the character emotionally along with right comic sense, she probably could’ve carried it despite the weak writing. But because her acting skills still lacks and heavily depend on strong support around her, her acting flaws became more visible and everything completely fell apart here. Unlike some of her previous works, there was no strong direction or seasoned/talented co-stars here to cover up for her weaknesses.

As for the male lead — with an impressive height of 190 cm, I only wish his acting presence had been equally impressive. Personally, after watching *Lovely Runner*, I wasn’t expecting much from him to begin with, and unfortunately this drama only reinforced that opinion. Within this entire fashion show analogy, he honestly just felt like a plain model with a bad runway walk being labelled as some “supermodel.” Simply put, he was the weakest link in terms of acting in this drama.

In the end, this entire production feels like a massive waste of money and time.The writing is messy, the direction is shallow, and the performances from the leads fail to carry the material. Every major element of the drama feels undercooked beneath all the luxury packaging.

If you’re a fan of the actors, maybe the visuals alone will satisfy you. But for general audiences, there’s very little here to stay invested in. There’s no emotional spark, no narrative tension, nothing truly compelling beneath the glossy surface.