Amber Liu Talks About Her Style Evolution From K-Pop Star To "Rogue Rouge" Solo Artist

"I think I’m going pretty out of my comfort zone and I’m learning to be ok with it. It’s still something I’m not 100% confident about."

Let's take it back to 2009. After a few years of intense training, Amber's music career has officially begun as a member of the influential K-pop group, f(x). She's K-pop's beloved, androgynous tomboy, but her image always has to take the entire group — as well as Korean standards of beauty and style — into consideration.

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Now, as a solo artist claiming her multidimensional space in the American music scene (after all, she's a trilingual, California-born, Taiwanese-American gal), she's redefining her style — but most of all, she's having fun experimenting with it.

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We met up with Amber during her Gone Rogue tour and delved into her style evolution, music, tour, friends, and everything in between:

Whether you go to one of her shows, watch her YouTube videos, or talk to her in person, the most important takeaway is that Amber is Amber through and through — and one of her goals, as a celebrity and artist, is for everyone to embrace themselves.

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At the beginning of her NYC concert at Irving Plaza, Amber made sure to set the tone: "This is a be yourself zone. I don't care what color your skin is, how tall you are, who you love, I don't care about that...I want you to be comfortable here." The crowd erupted in cheers, of course, and I couldn't help but think how refreshing and needed a simple statement like that is needed these days.

The same openness is reflected in her personal style. Amber doesn't pretend to know the ins and outs of fashion, but with the help of her friends, she's willing to try just about everything once. But when she's truly in her ~element~, it's gonna be basketball shorts and a T-shirt.

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"That’s just my thing. I’m from a huge suburban area in Cali, so everybody knows each other. I play with my friends down the street. I just dress for comfort. And when I first started [my career], I never really cared about fashion. I was just training, so I was still wearing sweats — you’re not dressing to impress."

Even know, for someone as active as Amber — whether she's shooting Nike commercials (more on that later), training for/running her first half marathon, or testing out her VO2max (maximal oxygen uptake) levels, it just makes sense.

And that goes for her performance style as well. If Amber's performing, dancing, and shaking that ~brass~, you bet she's wearing something she can freely move in.

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Compared to K-pop's tendency towards bold makeup and style (which is also accompanied by a skilled, creative team of stylists), I wasn't surprised that Amber approached the styling for her tour totally differently: "I wanted it to be very intimate. Because it’s my first time touring and seeing a lot of the fans, I didn’t want to go fully 'I am this superhero in this costume!' In f(x), when I’m doing K-pop, that’s cool — that’s our concept. But me, as a solo artist, I’m just me. I’m gonna wear my jeans, my Jordans, and I'm just gonna be a little stupid on stage."

She stressed the importance of adapting to the mood of each song — whether it's more hyped and dancey, or softer and stripped down. And even though she only had one outfit change during the show, she still changed things up and threw on a llama sweater gifted from a fan. In short, Amber does what she wants and makes it fun.

But when it comes to fashion, she's been experimenting a lot with her style — and throughout the interview, she referred to fashion as "playing dress-up."

Instagram: @ajol_llama

Even just looking at her Instagram, it's clear that Amber has playing around with more color and experimenting with different prints and textures throughout the past few years. To that she said, "I think I’m going pretty out of my comfort zone and I’m learning to be ok with it. It’s still something I’m not 100% confident about." Relatable AF.

She also credits her close friend (and model/entrepreneur) Irene Kim with giving her "the confidence to take chances" helping her "find that balance" between traditionally masculine and feminine styles: "She'd be like, 'Babe, you don’t have to dress all girly, it’s fine. I know you. Just try it on and see how it works.' She didn’t even really change me, but she just took the things I had and gave me more things to think about as I’m putting outfits together. Irene would tell me that she would dress up in clothes when she was little, so I was like, 'I should just think of it as dress-up.'"

But in her earlier years, going from LA to Seoul — a very fashionable city — was her first style shock. She said, "I definitely went through this whole phase of seeing what my seniors or friends would be wearing and just copying that. I went through a colorful phase with loud patterns and a lot of graphic tees, debuted, had that style for a year or two, and then I had a phase of 'Screw all of that, I’m going back to the basics. Solid tee, solid colors, and maybe a nice outer piece.' And then I went back to the loud phase. It’s been going back and forth for a while now, and all the clothes I buy — when I want to reset my closet — I give them to my friends or donate them."

Amber knows now that experimenting doesn't mean making big changes, like buying entirely new pieces or always trying to go out of her comfort zone — a lot of it is thinking about how to style the pieces she already owns differently.

Instagram: @ajol_llama

"This is like something small, like this [on the left] is how I would usually dress but now I’m like, 'Oh, let’s tuck it in. Wear the hat forward. Mix greens with greens and black.'" Making little tweaks to give an outfit a different vibe is something I can get behind — and, most importantly, actually do.

And beyond dressing for herself, ever since she's started taking on her own projects and directing her own videos, Amber uses style and clothing to convey emotional depth in her creative work.

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"I would like to tell people that there’s an intention behind every visual and every step. I’m not gonna overkill it — what happens if I’m wearing a Gucci jacket and I’m at the ocean being irresponsible and I just ruin the $5000 jacket? No, I wouldn’t do that. But I wouldn’t even wear it. There’s a mood and story, not conveyed only through the visuals, but through the clothing as well. A lot of the songs, again from my past work, is very conceptual — but as a solo artist, I didn’t make up these stories or emotions; it comes from somewhere and all I want to do is express them the way that I can."

So, if it wasn't already clear, mood goes hand-in-hand with style for Amber. For a boppier track like "Countdown," that's where she'd pop in a few risks and play around with different elements.

Instagram: @ajol_llama

When her friend Stefanie found black pants accented with cheetah print, Amber responded with, "'Why? Well, I don’t really wear it, but I’ll try it.' And then I saw it, and I was like 'fuck it.'”

But making yourself feel good is the most important part. If something doesn't feel quite right, bring in something familiar — about the photo above, Amber commented, "I was never really comfortable showing my skin. Something like this is where I really tried. You’re supposed to wear your typical bra and it shows your chest, but usually I would never wear that, but I’ll wear my sports bra and show off my midriff instead." It's all about balance, folks!

As long as she keeps her essence, it's all good. Even as a f(x) member, which meant oftentimes wearing outfits you didn't want to wear*, Amber always valued a sense of self and individuality.

Instagram: @ajol_llama

"I’ve always told the [f(x)] girls this and this is something I’ve believed since day one: the more we are ourselves, the better the group does. I owe it to my group to do me the best because that only helps our statement, which is, 'Let’s be different and let’s show that when people are different and come together, it still works and it’s still pretty fucking cool.'" A beautiful summary of why f(x) is so special.

*(for the sake of not making things more difficult for everyone involved)

Amber's partnerships with brands like Nike Women embody similar messages to the ones that she spreads through in songs like "Beautiful" and "White Noise" — through commercial and personal work, Amber works through her own evolutions of self-love and body confidence.

Instagram: @ajol_llama

The caption reads: "For a long time people made me feel ashamed of my body. Then I became ashamed of my body. People wanted me to be weak because that's what a girl 'should' be like. I threw away my ambitions and goals. Well, I'm not that person anymore. I will always continue to work hard, become stronger, and learn to love myself for who I am, imperfections and all."

Follow her on YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter — because she's always working on cool projects that you'll be sorry you missed!

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