It has a clean, minimalist aesthetic. Gender neutral. Functional. As one person said: it's merch for grownups.
You can even kind of assign members' aesthetics to the items: candle is Jungkook, that bar necklace is Jimin, lotion and lip balm to Hobi, rings to Yoongi, etc.
The prices listed on the preview are most likely the price tags in the Seoul pop-up. They are very reasonable, like the necklace is about $22 USD. And fyi, it only comes with the rectangular bar pendant and does not include the ring. It's interesting they added the ring just for a promo pic.
Anyway.
The sweatshirt is about $65 USD. The candle is about $26 which is what those 3-wick candles at Bath and Body Works cost at regular price. About $20 for the crate and it seems large enough to be very useful.
If this merch makes it to Weverse Shop, which we expect it will, I'm not expecting the prices to remain low. And then add in shipping... ugh.
Personally, I'm not a huge merch buyer. We'll see what the prices are when it all hits Weverse Shop.
Some are underwhelmed by the designs and the fact all of that decoding/puzzle solving we had to do only culminated in this pile of good.
Some are trying to reconcile the fact the photocard images appear to have been taken back in 2021 and none of the members look like that anymore. That is the case in any set of photocards. All of that collateral material must be produced way ahead of time.
That's ok. Not everything will please everyone. It was still fun while it lasted and seemed to clear out the negativity for a while.
The locations run concurrently for the most part. It's not a traveling show. They all close by the end of June, some open for longer periods than others. Some open longer than a month, one barely ten days. That's a long time just to sell merch. Unless there's something else to push while these shops are open. I guess we'll see.
Jin will be back while these shops are still open.
I just gotta say that there was some planning that went into this. And they started a long time ago. They probably had gotten a lot done (photocards) and then had to pause and regroup when things went somewhat off the rails in 2022.
Who knows, maybe Namjoonie's puzzling delay in enlisting (and perhaps the others) was because they were working on something else that goes along with this Monochrome project...
Honestly, I'd told myself no more merch, after FESTA this year. The exception would have been Jungkook's merch, had it been something really exciting, AND products that ship in a timely manner.
When I saw the approximate shipment dates of March 20-April 4, that answered the question for me. Why would I order something and happily wait 4 freaking months for it? Just sayin'.
Back during FESTA I was in the depths of feelings about the 10th anniversary, and all that I've felt about their MS. I was a sappy mess, and I ordered two items to "celebrate" the milestone of 10 years. Problem was, that the merch wasn't showing up for 3+ months. Yeah. But, I ordered it anyway. When it showed up in September, it was a bit anti-climatic. I still haven't actually worn the tee-shirt, as it just hangs in the closet with the tag still attached, along side my BTS hoodies.
I've got some theories about why HYBE has this system of pre-ordering, for all of the merch. With pre-ordering they know exactly how much of each item to produce, AND it is pre-paid. We basically pay for the manufacturing of the merchandise, months before we even lay a hand on it ourselves. It is a system that words for them, obviously. ARMYs just go along with it as most think it is a way to support the members. I'm not so sure it works that way.
Why would someone want to order something that won't arrive for months, long after the actual promotion that it's been designed to promote?? I wonder why ARMYs haven't raised a bit of a fuss over this. It obviously bothers me enough to warrant this post...
I had hoped that some of Jungkook's merch would be immediately available. Hope has been dashed, as they say. I won't be ordering anything, as I've given up hope that they would change their system around the sales of merchandise.
When Jimin drops his new music in the coming weeks, I'll purchase that. Anything else? Nope.
If there were actually a way to send a message to HYBE to share my opinion, I'd do so. Since there isn't, it's going to live here in these words... I'm letting it go, and I'll be keeping my cash.
Maybe after they return from the Military and they regroup with a tour and new music things will change regarding merch. Miracles do happen. In the meantime, we shall wait and see. 💜
So I’m big on subtle merch. And these really emulate that. I basically just made mock ups of merch I’d want. I don’t have merch for all the members yet. But I have ideas for everyone.