In the span of 15 years, Sunmi has lived dozens of lifetimes. All of them merge together the second the K-pop star takes the stage on the latest stop on her Good Girl Gone Mad tour. Tonight, Sunmi is in New York City at Terminal 5, a venue that packs 3,000 people into three levels. An hour before the show begins, we meet up backstage — in the male dancers’ dressing room, to be specific — for a quick interview. 

Sunmi sits across from me in a tan sequined spaghetti-strapped mini dress. For the night, she’s popped in sky-blue colored contacts, which contrast her gilded brown smokey eyes adorned with tiny gold pearls. (Here are some similar ones if you want to recreate her makeup.) Her lips are topped with a matte dusty rose hue that doesn’t budge as she sips hot tea. I’m guessing it’s either Peripera’s Ink the Velvet in Well-Made Nude or MAC’s Powder Kiss Velvet Blur Slim Stick in Brickthrough. And Sunmi no longer has ultra-long, mermaid-like bright tangerine hair. For tour, she’s dyed it dark chocolate. Tonight it blends into subtle ways that flow down her arms. “I’ve always thought New York was quite a chic city,” Sunmi tells me of her inspiration for tonight’s look. “So I tried to express that in my hair and makeup.” 

At first, I think of this ensemble as an outfit that Sunmi would wear in the pilot for a 2022 K-drama reboot of Sex and the City. She’d star as Carrie of course. However, as soon as Sunmi starts performing, I get more of a Chicago on Broadway vibe. Someone needs to get her a gig as Velma Kelly asap, if you ask me. After all, Sunmi easily flows between Korean and English throughout our interview. 

But Sunmi’s New York City-inspired look is only for now. After she performs a couple of songs, Sunmi will change into a frilly denim dress before switching that out for a black romper with a diamond chandelier-like design hanging from her chest and knee-high mesh stockings.