“Oh my god, you’re from Australia!”
The excitement from this month’s cover stars Danielle Marsh and Hanni Pham to be on set with Vogue Australia is palpable, especially when they learn that two members of the team have flown all the way from their home country to South Korea for the shoot.
As they pose together with a comfort and ease only a genuine friendship can create, they talk and joke in their strong Australian accents and, more than once, cannot contain their laughter. Look closely, and they could be any teen besties hanging out – except, of course, they’re surrounded by a huge entourage for a Vogue cover shoot. And despite their homegrown roots – Marsh, 18, hails from Newcastle while Pham, 19, grew up in Melbourne – they are actually two of the biggest pop stars in the world right now.
It’s notoriously difficult for Australian singers and musicians to “make it” overseas, a notion still held up as the pinnacle of pop culture success. But Marsh and Pham are part of an ever-growing group of antipodeans who have become major stars in South Korea, and, by extension, the rest of the world. K-Pop as a genre has exploded globally in the last decade, thanks in no small part to the likes of supergroups including BTS and Blackpink (in which Melbourne girl and former Vogue Australia cover star Rosé is a member). It’s tempting to categorise NewJeans, the five-person girl group Marsh and Pham are two proud members of, as the next big thing.
Except NewJeans has kind of already hit “big thing” status. In the 18 months since July 2022, when NewJeans made their official debut, Hot 100 and a number-one album on the 200, chart status in multiple other countries including Australia’s own ARIAs, enormous TikTok virality and a Lollapalooza performance that drew record crowds (and marked the first time a K-pop girl group had appeared at the festival). And that’s just NewJeans as a group. Individually, the members are stars in their own right, especially when it comes to the fashion world. Marsh is a global ambassador for Burberry and YSL Beauty, while Pham is a global ambassador for Gucci and Armani Beauty.
