EJAE, the singer and songwriter who performed "Golden," the OST from the Netflix animated film "K-Pop Demon Hunters," took the stage at the opening ceremony of the 2026 FIFA World Cup in North and Central America.
At a special performance before the opening match held at Mexico City's Estadio Azteca on Wednesday (Korean time), EJAE sang the World Cup's official theme song "DNA" alongside Italian opera singer Andrea Bocelli.
It was not only the singing that filled the stadium that day. The Korean story embodied in the dress EJAE wore shone alongside her.
The dress was created by LEJE, a Korean brand led by designers Je Yang-mo and Kang Joo-hyung. LEJE has previously collaborated with EJAE at the Grammy Awards and the Oscars, presenting "Korean beauty" to the world.
What drew the eye first was the color blue. This World Cup, jointly hosted for the first time by Canada, Mexico, and the United States, holds red, green, and blue as symbols of each nation. LEJE chose blue—the color most deeply connected to EJAE's life—as the foundation of the dress.
Blooming atop the blue background was a lotus. In Korea, the lotus has long been regarded as a flower wishing for peace and happiness, and its nature of retaining nobility and purity even in mud naturally overlapped with the message of "harmony" this World Cup seeks to convey.
The dress's true value emerged the closer one looked. Fabric stretching up to 100 yards was layered in multiple folds to express the waves of light reflecting on a water's surface, and the graceful curves and rich volume of hanbok were redrawn into a modern silhouette. Atop it, mother-of-pearl and white crystal hand-carved by Korean artisans were embroidered one by one, shimmering subtly like water droplets on lotus petals.
Beneath the full hem of the dress, unexpectedly, were Adidas sneakers. This mix-match, where a traditional silhouette and a sporty sensibility collided in one place, breathed a light touch into a stage that could have flowed heavily.
Korean lyrics also rang out on stage. The lyrics EJAE sang—"Even if I fall again, I rise again"—resonated with the meaning of the lotus that rises again even after falling. LEJE said, "Just as football becomes a language that connects person to person and nation to nation, we hope this tournament will be long remembered as a beautiful festival of peace and harmony."
Meanwhile, LEJE has been presenting Korean aesthetics with EJAE on world award stages. At the Grammy Awards, EJAE wore a sequined skirt engraved with some 2,500 instances of the character "bok" (福), meaning fortune. The skirt was crafted by a gold-leaf artisan with 50 years of experience. The outfit was inspired by the garments of the last princess of the Joseon Dynasty.
At the Academy Awards (Oscars), she presented an outfit inspired by the formal ceremonial robes of the Korean Empire's imperial court. Gilt-bronze ornaments reminiscent of an ancient gold crown were added to the pure white base, and the decorative design was the rose of Sharon.
LEJE also drew an enthusiastic response in its collaboration with BLACKPINK's Jennie, featuring a mother-of-pearl tube top, a metal outfit modeled after a Silla gold crown, and a 15-meter veil densely inscribed with verses from the "Cheonggu Yeongeon."
