*Photography courtesy of W Korea. Styling: W Korea Fashion Team. Cover feature: MEOVV (The Black Label, Capital Records US) — Sooin, Gawon, Anna, Narin, Ella. W Korea Vol. 5, Issue No. 257, May 2026.*
The Cats Are Out. There’s No Cage Left.
There’s a particular kind of electricity in the air when a group stops trying to prove themselves and simply becomes. For MEOVV — The Black Label’s five-member girl group comprised of Sooin, Gawon, Anna, Narin, and Ella — that moment arrived not with a declaration, but with a cover shoot.
Three different W Korea covers. Three radically distinct visual worlds. One group, completely in command of every frame.In one image, Anna smoulders against a deep cerulean backdrop, leather baker boy cap tipped low, a worn designer bag clutched at her chest — cool, cinematic, unapologetic.
In another, Gawon stands in a bare winter forest wearing an oversized grey jacket, holding a white Prada bag with red-tipped fingers, her gaze steady as stone.
In another, Gawon stands in a bare winter forest wearing an oversized grey jacket, holding a white Prada bag with red-tipped fingers, her gaze steady as stone. And then there is Ella: standing in a sunlit strawberry greenhouse in full Miu Miu layering, arms stretched wide like she’s opening the doors to her own universe. Commanding. Technicolour. Boundlessly alive.
Three covers. Three women. One undeniable truth: MEOVV has stepped fully, irrevocably, into themselves.
“My Eyes Open VVide” — and They Never Closed Again
To understand where MEOVV stands in May 2026, you have to go back to September 6, 2024 — the day five young women walked out onto the global K-pop stage with a debut digital single called *”Meow”* and quietly announced that something was shifting.
The group name — an acronym for **My Eyes Open VVide** — was more than a clever wordplay. It was a manifesto. Each double-V in MEOVV was, as member Ella explained, intended to represent every individual in the group, a visual fun that doubled as a statement of collective identity. The cats had arrived, and they had come with open eyes.
Founded under The Black Label — the label helmed by legendary producer Teddy, the architect behind BIGBANG, 2NE1, and BLACKPINK’s most defining records — MEOVV carried enormous expectation before a single note was played.
A debut partnership with Capitol Records, signed before they ever performed live, signalled international ambitions from day one. But ambition means little without execution. And execution, it turned out, was exactly what MEOVV was built for.
Five Women, Five Worlds, One Sound
What makes MEOVV genuinely rare in the fifth-generation K-pop landscape is the sheer breadth of lived experience packed into one group.
Ella Gross — the German-Korean maknae born in Los Angeles — entered the industry as a child model at age two, appearing in campaigns for Zara, H&M, and GAP before most of her peers had figured out what they wanted to be.
Gawon, a Korean-American who grew up between New Jersey and South Korea, is a former YG Entertainment trainee who appeared in Adidas ads and taught herself Korean again after years immersed in English.
Sooin, the group’s main dancer, trained for years at Seoul’s prestigious School of Performing Arts. Anna, born in Toyama, Japan, of Japanese descent, was an exclusive model for *Seventeen Japan* and a social media presence of considerable standing before she ever stood on a music stage. And Narin — the final member revealed to fans, the one with the warmest stage smile — is fluent in Japanese, English, and Korean, and has been devoted to the dream of performing since childhood.
*”Five flags, five languages, five former lives — and one shared future. That’s the architecture of MEOVV.”*
Together, they form something that transcends the usual K-pop origin story. MEOVV isn’t a group assembled to fit a template. They are five genuinely formed individuals who chose, with full awareness, to build something together. That intentionality shows in everything they do.
From “Meow” to Platinum: The Sonic Evolution
The group’s musical journey has been a deliberate, accelerating ascent.
After the debut single *”Meow”* established their tone — sharp, self-possessed, cat-coded with edge — the double-release *”Toxic”* and *”Body”* in November 2024 showed range and confidence. Then came the landmark: the May 2025 debut EP, *My Eyes Open VVide*, which earned Platinum certification — an extraordinary achievement for a group still inside their debut year.
The EP’s pre-released track *”Hands Up”* gave MEOVV their first music broadcast trophy on M Countdown in May 2025, a milestone that sent the fandom — known officially as PAWMPAWM, a portmanteau of the French word for apple (*pomme*) and a cat’s paw — into celebration. The lead single *”Drop Top”* crystallised a sound that was theirs alone: cool, kinetic, built for stages.
Later in 2025, *”Burning Up”* arrived as a digital single in October — described by member Gawon as a track radiating “the crystal of fiery energy.” It was the first song the group heard *after* their debut, rather than before, making it feel even more charged. Member Narin spoke of wanting to show a “raw and free” side of the group through it, and the music delivered exactly that.
*”‘Burning Up’ wasn’t just a comeback. It was MEOVV writing a new sentence in their own language.”*
The Stage Is Their Canvas
On any given performance, MEOVV doesn’t just execute choreography — they build environments. Their stage presence is rooted in an almost architectural approach to space: each member understands exactly where she belongs in the picture and how she completes it.
The year 2025 confirmed this at scale. MEOVV performed at KCON LA 2025, commanding international audiences. They appeared at the MAMA Awards in Hong Kong — where they earned widespread praise after respectfully adjusting their *”Burning Up”* performance to honour a local tragedy, a decision that spoke of maturity far beyond their stage years.
Back home, they dominated the Korean summer festival circuit: SBS Gayo Daejeon, Superpop Korea, the Incheon Airport Sky Festival, and university festivals across the country from Korea University to Hanyang to Ajou.
Each appearance reinforced the same truth: MEOVV are not a group you watch passively. They are a group that draws you in and holds you there.
Fashion as Language: The W Korea Covers as Proof of Concept
The May 2026 W Korea issue isn’t just a fashion editorial. It’s a thesis statement.
The decision to feature MEOVV across three separate cover editions — a coveted distinction even for established acts — reflects the magazine’s recognition that this group cannot be reduced to a single image. The visual identities explored across the three covers — Anna’s nocturnal cool, Gawon’s bare-forest quietude, Ella’s Miu Miu maximalism — are genuinely distinct, yet speak a coherent group language. Each is styled with specificity and intention.
Anna’s cover is all noir elegance: a sheepskin coat, a structured leather bag, a leather beret pulled low. The blue-lit backdrop renders her mythological.
Gawon’s cover strips everything back to raw texture: bare branches, autumn leaves, grey fabric, a white leather backpack — an image that feels like the opposite of performance, and is more powerful for it. Ella’s cover explodes with layered colour and farmland sunshine: Miu Miu cap raised overhead, belt details, a layered shirt-sweater-jacket combination, the whole composition vibrating with physical joy. Together, these covers say what MEOVV has been saying with every release: we contain multitudes, and we are not asking permission to show you all of them.
Beyond the Stage: Brand Power and Global Reach
The commercial dimension of MEOVV’s story is inseparable from the creative one. In February 2025, they became brand ambassadors for L’Oréal Paris — one of the world’s most recognisable beauty brands — cementing their status in global fashion and beauty culture. In July 2025, they were introduced as brand ambassadors for Kao Corporation’s MEMEME hair care line, simultaneously releasing their first Japanese single of the same name under Universal Music Japan.
These weren’t simply endorsement deals. They were strategic expansions of identity: the same group whose music explores themes of self-possession and wide-eyed ambition, now reflected back in the beauty and fashion categories where those themes live most viscerally.
Their fandom culture has grown at the same pace. PAWMPAWM — combining the French “pomme” (apple, as in apple of my eye) with “paw” (a cat’s paw) — has become one of K-pop’s more distinct and devoted communities, growing across every platform with the group’s expanding releases. The name itself is characteristic of MEOVV’s approach: emotionally generous, a little poetic, and entirely its own.
What 2026 Holds: Eyes Even Wider
The W Korea May 2026 covers arrive as a signal flare: MEOVV are entering a new chapter, and the creative ambition is scaling accordingly.
They’ve spent less than two years as a public entity, yet their output already includes a Platinum EP, four digital singles, a Japanese debut, two major international brand partnerships, and now one of Korean fashion media’s most prestigious cover features. The architecture of a long, defining career is already visible.
If 2024 was the year of arrival, and 2025 was the year of proof, then 2026 looks very much like the year of expansion — bigger stages, bolder sounds, wider reach. The group that opened its eyes on September 6, 2024, has never once looked away.
Watch, PAWMPAWM. The next frame is going to be stunning.
The Production Team
Fashion Editor | Kim Hyun-ji
Feature Editor | Jeon Yeo-ul
Photographer | Choi Na-rang
Men’s Content Director | Choi Jin-woo
Stylist | Jang Hee-jun
Hair | Jo Da-mi
Makeup | Hong Eom-ji
Nails | Yoo Seung-hwi
Set | Lee Ye-seul
Assistant | Kim Su-rim
NOTE: All photos were captured on iPhone 17 Pro.
패션 에디터 | 김현지
피처 에디터 | 전여울
포토그래퍼 | 최나랑
맨 콘텐츠 디렉터 | 최진우
스타일리스트ㅣ장희준
헤어ㅣ조다미
메이크업ㅣ홍엄지
네일ㅣ유승휘
세트ㅣ이예슬
어시스턴트ㅣ김수림
*모든 이미지는 iPhone 17 Pro 로 촬영 되었습니다.