FASHION IN MANHUA (CHINESE COMIC): Zheng Shuyi's outfit in Accidental Love/ Only For Love manhua

I happened to read it randomly a couple of months ago on website for this interesting Manhua named Accidental Love /Only for love. Unfortunately, I didn't know how to pronounce the original title in Chinese language. 

It was released since last year in 2024 by author Qiao Yao with genre a mixed of romance, comedy, office, drama, and josei. This manhua is an adaptation from the novel which previously already adapted into live action drama played by Bai Lu and Dylan Wang in 2023. However, some people said the manhua has a bit different approach in storytelling. 

 

I was instantly hooked since the first time I read it in English version. Starting from the art, the story, and most of all the fashion wore by the female lead character, Zheng Shuyi. I would give the art a French kiss of 9.5 out 10, simply awesome. As for the story, although it might be a little cliche or cringe office - rich handsome young guy vs ordinary but pretty girl -slow burn romance, I still love it. The thing that I admire the most is the fashion. It seems like the author does really take her time in doing it to be able to show some great office attire examples for the characters, most of all the main girl. It ranges from coats, dress, blazers, casual clothes, hoodies, bags, etc.

 

I put some of the reference pictures from the original Manhua which belong to the rightful owner and not mine.

FASHION STYLE in webtoon 2: Royal Family's Couple Matching Costumes (Remarried Empress/Second Marriage & Not Your Typical Reincarnation Story)

   The most common bed time princess story   began with 'once upon a time..' and ended with 'they live happily ever after' when the lucky ordinary girl or true princess finally found her happiness with the prince or rich royal or noble family man. 

   

   However, these manhwa (Korean comic) webtoon series took a different approach in their stories. I took two out of many manhwa out there and will only discuss based on their choices of costume designs rather than the story itself since it should be explained better in my other blog, My Little Sekai by noodlemie. Remarried Empress/ Second Marriage and Not Your Typical Reincarnation Story are the titles  of these royal manhwa story.

   Firstly, Not Your Typical Reincarnation Story (NYTRS). It is a story of a woman who lost her life in real world as she fell down the stairs and given a second chance to live but as a character in a novel she read. Unfortunately, she woke up  as the 'villain' girl character Edith in the story who supposed to have a tragic ending. She was forced to marry the 2nd son of her family's rival noble family, Killian, out of both family agreement. Surprisingly, some things changes along the way. I guess that's for a little spoiler.

   What caught my attention the most was their couple costumes. The designs are quite complicated with intrinsic details as it should represented royal western family, but the colors were calm instead of shiny bright colors with glittering gold to show the elegant and rich aura. The chosen colors also complimented each other to both their characters and costumes themselves. I applaud the author for taking their time to put this into thought and showing it gracefully in their story.        

   As for the second royal manhwa story is Remarried Empress or also known as Second Marriage (RE). The story revolved around Navier, a noble-born woman turned queen -  turned ex queen and then became a queen again in new country. Basically She married twice and the story explained why. 

   Her royal costumes with her new husband Heinry, also represented royal, elegant complicated designs which unlikely to be available in real life. Since both of them have blonde hairs, the designs are mostly using less gold color and only lighter close to earthy color tones. Nonetheless, it is still quite an eye-pleasing imaginary designs as seen in these reference pictures both both series which obviously belong to the rightful authors and not mine.    

   One of the main reason I like manhwa lately, it is because the comic pages are colorful and page positioning which defied general comic page arrangements aside from amazing illustration art. Once again, the pictures belong to the rightful owners and I only use it for reference only in this article.

 

 

FASHION STYLE in Webtoon: 1. Serena (Serena) and Leyla (Cry or Better Yet, Beg)

    Lately, I've been caught up reading some Manhwa (Korean comic) in my spare time and I was amazed with its art and colorful illustration. I've been in awe in how great the artists' efforts are in pouring their heart and mind into their creations which for me were shown as I read through each page. The stories they offered in it also brought me to another new world which are totally different from any other type of comic I've read before. But let's skip the story part since I will discuss only what's related to fashion here.

   These two manhwa featured in this article are some of the examples. 

   The first one would be Serena Serenity from webtoon Serena. Serena a rich noble girl in earlier modern world, perhaps in the late 50s-70s era if I may guess it or even way earlier era. Since there is no technology tools appeared in the story. She lives in a huge castle with all the luxury life style she can get and a lot of high class costumes to wear. 

   I applaud the author for bringing such beautiful depiction in each outfit she wore in it. It truly shows that the author put huge efforts to provide an eye-pleasing illustrations of the clothing. From casual work suit to night gown or simply everyday dress with a fashion designer-like's touch. I bet the author really did her home work in researching the proper costume designs for this character in big amount of time or else she adores fashion world and somehow had a good sense in it too. 

   As for the 2nd webtoon, Cry or Better Yet Beg, I will discuss about Leyla Llewellyn. She is the main female lead in the story which came from a commoner background who lives in a rather simple and ordinary life as an adopted daughter of the gardener in one noble family household. 

   The outfit she wears mostly pretty simple and went back to the world war era to semi modern world. With short sleeve shirts, skirts and sometimes with overall dress and rather plain night dress, she was depicted to be a truly modest girl and lives her life as she doesn't have much choices. The author draw her beautifully and successfully shown her costumes did not cover her bright character instead it made her appearances just hard to ignore. One time she wears a beautiful dress for a party that unknowingly to her came from the duke himself, it was surprisingly and effortlessly gorgeous  I felt as if the author spoiled me with these amazing illustrations as I follow what is going on in the story. 

   In short, These two manhwa /webtoon series will show you an interesting stories and at the same time, great drawing or illustrations to enjoy while reading. I  rate the art as 9 out of 10 and the story so far is 8.9 for both.     

All the pictures belong to the rightful owner of both manhwa /webtoon and not mine. I only use it as references to be shown in this article.