At Rogers Stadium, the BTS ARMY showed up ready to be seen on Saturday.
Hours before the first night of the K-pop group’s Toronto shows began, the area around the stadium was already buzzing with fans showing off outfits inspired by BTS songs, members and eras.
The highly anticipated concert was delayed for about an hour due to a thunderstorm, as organizers asked fans in the grandstands to seek shelter at the Fan Plaza. Just before 8 p.m., the stadium shared the “good news” that the concert would proceed as planned.
Here’s a look at some of the most memorable outfits in the crowd.
There was no such thing as keeping it simple for Scarborough’s Hadia Hajez when she planned her look.
The George Brown fashion student, 20, leaned into the red-and-black palette of the Arirang World Tour, pairing a flowing white mesh top with baggy jeans and manicured nails decorated with nods to the BTS logo. Every detail was deliberate, exactly how she likes it.
“If I go anywhere, I always do too much,” she said. “I like adding details. I’m not the kind of person to do a really simple look.”
Paige Davis, 28, and Emma Nikkanen, 21, drew plenty of compliments from fellow fans when they arrived in fuzzy outfits inspired by BT21, the collection of animated characters created by the BTS members.
Davis was Jimin’s yellow Chimmy, while Nikkanen was RM’s blue Koya. Nikkanen sewed both costumes herself. Davis said the experience was part of finally getting to enjoy BTS on her own terms.
“Unfortunately, I have never been able to have this experience before because I didn’t have anybody to go with or funds,” the Barrie resident said.
“Now at the ripe age of almost 29, we finally get to go and splurge and indulge with adult money.”
For Ann Hsu, the BTS concert was a family affair.
The 46-year-old travelled from Vancouver with her 11-year-old son, Grayson, for their first BTS concert together. They each wore a T-shirt featuring a different BTS member on the cover of Rolling Stone, a look they first wore for her daughter’s birthday earlier this year.
Before the show, Hsu watched as Grayson handed out freebies he had made himself to fellow BTS Army.
“He’s quite involved,” she said. “It feels good to give, and teach him to share.”
Jasmine Su and Dixon Lau took their couple status to a new level when they showed up in matching dusty pink coveralls inspired by an episode of the “Run BTS” web series.
For Su, 31, wearing the outfit had been on her BTS bucket list for years. She pulled it together in about a week, much to the admiration of her husband, Lau, 37.
“She came home with a huge piece of fabric and just started sewing,” he said.
Su finished the outfit the hard way.
“The night before we flew in, I pulled an all-nighter,” she said.
Jolie Lam, Hilary Wong and Luis Dimaranan weren’t worried about the forecast of rain at the outdoor stadium. The three 21-year-olds from Toronto were dressed as tuna, a cheeky tribute to Jin, the eldest member of BTS and a professed fishing enthusiast.
The costumes nodded to the song “Super Tuna,” and, Lam noted, to “Swim,” a newer addition to the BTS catalogue.
“I used to go to the Banana Bar Crawl, where you dress up as a banana and hop bars,” Lam said. “So I’m used to dressing up.”
But Luis had a bonus costume hidden underneath his tuna suit: a white shirt and overalls that turned him into a fisherman.
All around the venue, other fish were spotted.
Aman Gill had been deciding between something “sexy” or “funny” before deciding to wear a fish on her head and fan-made pyjamas inspired by Jin’s “Good Day” design. Her goal was to catch the eye of the BTS members from her floor seats. So far, the outfit has been getting plenty of attention from fellow fans, too.
“I didn’t want to stand out,” the Etobicoke resident said. “But I like the attention, not gonna lie.”
Sergio Gonzalez has taken his BTS fandom around the world. On Saturday, he wore the memories, too.
The 38-year-old, who lives in Mexico City, arrived dressed head-to-toe in black, inspired by the group’s “Hooligan” looks, with BTS key chains he picked up during a trip to South Korea. It was a lot of black for a humid summer day, but Gonzalez wasn’t complaining since the design was all his own.
“It’s special for you; you create it,” he said “So it’s a personal feeling, I think.”
Yukiko Adachi, 40, couldn’t decide which colour to use for her eye makeup, so she went with all of them. The rainbow of colours added another pop to her usual rainbow hair and complemented a vintage BTS shirt she bought nearly a decade ago at a night market in Richmond, B.C.
“I’ve worn it to other concerts, and I’ve never washed it,” she said. “I’m afraid the print will bleed.”
Jemila Abdulai, 27, and Kaze Sheilla, 23, became friends after spotting BTS on each other’s phone lock screens at an unrelated social event in Vancouver. Soon, they were brainstorming outfits inspired by modern and traditional Korean fashion, as well as the red-and-black palette of “Arirang.”
“I’ve been planning this look even before I got my tickets,” Abdulai said.
“People create inspiration images on TikTok, and so you start layering them in your head.”
Date night looks a little different when you’ve surprised your girlfriend with BTS concert tickets.
That’s how Jacey Hill-Pine and his girlfriend, Danica Alexander, both 19, ended up at the show. The couple travelled from Sault Ste. Marie and co-ordinated their outfits around the group’s 2013 song “War of Hormone,” released when they were still in elementary school.
Hill-Pine said sharing the concert with Alexander was especially meaningful because she’s the one who made him a fan.
“At first I didn’t really care for them,” he said. “Then she started putting it on more … and I thought, these guys are pretty good.”
