Image Rights & Pictorial Credits: All editorial images, pictorial photography, and visual assets from the Men’s Folio Singapore x Calvin Klein April 2026 Digital Issue are the property of Men’s Folio Singapore and Calvin Klein Inc. respectively. Choi Min-ho (Minho) is managed by SM Entertainment Co., Ltd.
THE COVER THAT STOPPED THE SCROLL
There are K-pop idols who wear fashion, and then there’s Choi Minho — a man who becomes fashion the moment the shutter clicks. When Men’s Folio Singapore and Calvin Klein came together for their April 2026 digital issue, they didn’t just choose a face. They chose a force. Minho, the self-described “flaming charisma” of legendary K-pop group SHINee, steps into a Calvin Klein visual world that was practically built for him: clean lines, magnetic tension, bodies speaking louder than words.
The images are arresting. Denim on denim. A gaze that doesn’t ask for your attention — it simply commands it. If there’s one pictorial that Gen Z fans will screenshot, save, and set as their lock screen before spring is over, this is the one.
FROM INCHEON TO ICON: THE MINHO TIMELINE
Born December 9, 1991, in Incheon, South Korea, Choi Min-ho grew up with sport in his blood — his father, Choi Yun-kyum, is a respected football coach and former player. That athletic DNA never left him. It shaped the way he moves on stage, the way he occupies a room, the way he fills a Calvin Klein frame with something rare: effortless physical authority.
Scouted through SM Entertainment’s casting system in 2006, Minho had already walked the runway — literally — before SHINee debuted. He modelled for Ha Sang-baek’s Seoul Collection F/W 08-09 in March 2008, a full two months before SHINee’s explosive debut on Inkigayo on May 25, 2008, with “Replay (Noona, You’re So Pretty).” The fashion-forward instinct was always there.
SHINee’s debut changed Korean pop music. With a sound that fused R&B, funk, contemporary dance, and sharp styling, they were immediately different from everything else on the scene. And within that group of extraordinary talents, Minho carved a role that felt singular: the rapper who wrote his own bars from day one, the visual who moved like an athlete, the member who made sincerity look like a superpower.
“He’s not performing charisma. He is charisma. There’s a difference — and Minho is the reason you know it.” — Kpoppie Magazine
SHINEE’S WORLD, MINHO’S UNIVERSE
SHINee’s catalogue is a masterclass in musical reinvention. From “Ring Ding Dong” (2009) to the sophisticated “Sherlock” (2012), from the triumphant post-hiatus comeback “Don’t Call Me” (2021) to their SMTOWN World Tour stages in London and Los Angeles in 2025, the group has never stood still. And through every era, Minho has been the one who seems most alive in the chaos — thriving in the spectacle, grounded in the craft.
His solo journey, which began with the single “I’m Home” in 2019, has accelerated into something genuinely compelling. The 2022 mini-album Chase introduced a Minho who was ready to define himself on his own terms.
His 2024 full-length album Call Back was a statement: textured, emotionally layered, and shot through with the kind of mature energy that comes from 16 years in the industry without losing your hunger. That same November, he held his first solo concert, Mean: Of My First, at Hwajeong Tiger Dome in Seoul — a milestone he then took on tour to Taiwan, Japan, Macau, and the Philippines. The momentum hasn’t slowed. In December 2025, the single “TEMPO” landed — kinetic, confident, exactly what the name promises. And in February 2026, Japanese digital singles “Sunkissed” and “Flawless” followed, broadening his musical footprint across Asia with songs that feel as warm and precise as a golden-hour photo shoot.
THE BODY AS LANGUAGE: MINHO AND FASHION
Long before “K-pop idol as fashion icon” became a media template, Minho was living it. His Gucci appearance at the brand’s FW17 fashion show — stepping out in an embroidered velvet coat that had even Gucci’s official Instagram stopping mid-scroll — announced to the global fashion world that this was someone to watch beyond the stage.
What makes Minho different in a fashion context isn’t just the face (though it is a very good face). It’s the way his physicality intersects with clothing. At 181–184cm, built with genuine athletic training — he competed at HYROX Singapore 2026 in April, placing in the men’s doubles category — Minho wears clothes the way designers dream clothes should be worn: as a second skin, not a costume.
Calvin Klein is the natural evolution of that relationship. The brand’s visual DNA — minimal, sensual, democratic but aspirational — maps perfectly onto what Minho represents in 2026. He isn’t trying to be anything he isn’t. He’s been training in martial arts since childhood, performed on stages across Asia and Europe, starred in theatre productions of Waiting for Waiting for Godot and Rendez-vous, and earned a master’s in Film Acting from Konkuk University. There is a depth here that Calvin Klein’s camera doesn’t need to manufacture. It just needs to find it.
“In a Calvin Klein frame, Minho isn’t posing. He’s arriving. And he was always going to arrive here.” — Kpoppie Magazine
THE THEATRE OF HIMSELF
One of the most compelling chapters of Minho’s recent evolution is his move into theatre. In September 2024, he made his stage debut in the play Waiting for Waiting for Godot alongside veteran actor Lee Soon-jae, playing Val — an understudy perpetually waiting for his moment in the spotlight. The meta-narrative wasn’t lost on anyone paying attention. In April 2025, he returned to the stage for Rendez-vous, then reprised Waiting for Waiting for Godot in September.
In a W Korea editorial tied to these theatrical milestones, Minho reflected on what performance teaches you about presence: “The stage is a place where nothing can be hidden, no matter how hard you try.” It’s the kind of hard-won self-knowledge that changes how you carry yourself — in interviews, on runways, and in front of a camera for Men’s Folio and Calvin Klein.
His acting career runs in parallel, across K-dramas (The Fabulous on Netflix, Romance in the House on JTBC in 2024) and film (the thriller New Normal, screened at international film festivals in 2023). In 2021, he won the Jury’s Special Award in the Male Category at the 40th Golden Cinematography Awards. He has been a GQ cover story, a Vogue Korea editorial, an Olympic torch relay participant, a UNICEF ambassador, a Korean Sport & Olympic Committee ambassador, and — now — a Calvin Klein x Men’s Folio Singapore cover star.
The resume is staggering. But what matters more than the list is the texture of who he is across every single one of those roles. Consistent. Warm. Ferociously committed.
SHAWOLS, STAN CULTURE, AND THE GLOBAL SHINEE PHENOMENON
You cannot talk about Minho without talking about SHAWOLs — the SHINee fandom that has shown, over 17-plus years, that devotion and discernment can coexist. SHAWOLs were among the first K-pop fandoms to organise globally, to mobilise for chart support, and to sustain deep, long-term emotional investment in their artists across military service, personal losses, and industry shifts that would have broken other fanbases.
When Minho held his first solo fan concert in January 2024 — 2024 Best Choi’s Minho Fan-Con Multi-Chase at Jangchung Arena in Seoul — the emotional weight of the room was palpable. This was a man who had given his fans more than a decade and a half, and the fans were there to reflect that gift back to him.
In 2026, that relationship continues to evolve. Gen Z fans discovering Minho through TikTok, through the HYROX Singapore coverage, through I Live Alone appearances (where he won the 2025 MBC Entertainment Awards Multi-Player All-Rounder Award), are finding the same thing older SHAWOLs always knew: he is magnetic and he is real. In a landscape saturated with manufactured relatability, Minho’s authenticity isn’t a strategy. It’s just who he is.
THE CALVIN KLEIN FRAME: WHAT THIS PICTORIAL REALLY SAYS
There’s a long tradition of Calvin Klein finding artists who embody a specific kind of American-influenced global cool — bodies that are aspirational but grounded, faces that carry stories. In Minho, they found something that transcends that framework: a Korean artist who has helped reshape what global cool even means in 2026.
This isn’t just a fashion story. It’s a cultural document. Men’s Folio Singapore — itself a publication that has charted the intersection of Asian masculinity and global fashion for decades — recognises what this pictorial represents: a Korean man at the peak of his creative powers, wearing the most iconic denim in the world, and owning every centimetre of that frame.
The April 2026 digital issue isn’t just a pictorial. It’s a landmark.
WHAT’S NEXT: THE MINHO ERA IN FULL MOTION
With “Sunkissed” and “Flawless” establishing his Japanese solo presence in early 2026, and his athletic visibility at HYROX Singapore giving him a lifestyle platform that few K-pop artists can credibly occupy, Minho is entering a phase that feels less like a career and more like an era. An era of genuine multi-hyphenate power — artist, actor, athlete, model, cultural ambassador — that Gen Z understands intuitively as the only way to exist at the highest level.
SHINee activities, when they come, will always be the gravitational centre. But around that centre, Choi Minho is building something remarkable and entirely his own.
Watch this space. Because if there’s one thing 17 years of Minho’s career have taught us, it’s that the next frame is always better than the last.
Image Rights & Pictorial Credits: All editorial images, pictorial photography, and visual assets from the Men’s Folio Singapore x Calvin Klein April 2026 Digital Issue are the property of Men’s Folio Singapore and Calvin Klein Inc. respectively. All rights reserved. Images referenced editorially under journalistic fair use in the context of this editorial profile. No images reproduced without authorisation from the respective rights holders.
Artist & Management Credits: Choi Min-ho (Minho) is managed by SM Entertainment Co., Ltd. All artist information, biographical details, and discography data sourced from publicly available press materials, SM Entertainment official releases, and authorised media coverage.
Editorial Feature:
“CHOI MINHO: Flaming Charisma Meets Calvin Klein Cool”
Published in: Kpoppie Magazine — Digital Edition
Pictorial Featured: Men’s Folio Singapore x Calvin Klein, April 2026 Digital Issue
Written by: Kpoppie Magazine Editorial Team
Published by: Velocity Entertainment Inc
Company Territories: Japan / New Zealand
Publication Date: 18 April 2026
© 2026 Kpoppie Magazine / Velocity Entertainment Inc. All editorial content rights reserved. This article may not be reproduced, redistributed, or republished in whole or in part without written permission from Velocity Entertainment Inc.
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