She Is the Autumn That Blooms in Every Season
There’s a pink Nissan Figaro idling in a rose-washed underground garage, and Gaeul — IVE’s oldest member, lead rapper, and main dancer — is leaning against its hood like she was born for exactly this moment. Her long black hair falls past her shoulders.
Her pink ruffled pinafore dress catches the cyan glow bouncing off the windshield.
White tights, chunky sneakers, zero effort, infinite grace. The “Snow Princess” of K-pop has arrived — and she’s brought two entirely different worlds with her.
Because flip just a few pages, and the soft candy aesthetic dissolves completely.
Now she stands in an abandoned concrete hall, swathed in a floor-length black gown, elbow-length gloves, a stovepipe top hat stacked with towering obsidian feathers. The same face. Completely different universe. Both, unmistakably, Gaeul.
This is the concept KNIGHT Magazine built their April 2026 cover story around — SUPER SWEET AND COOL — and it fits her like a second skin. Not because she was styled to fit a concept, but because these two poles are something she’s been navigating her entire career.
From Incheon to Eleven: The Long Road to Debut
Born Kim Ga-eul in Bupyeong-gu, Incheon — a name that literally translates to “autumn” — she discovered dance early, beginning with ballet before the pull of hip-hop proved impossible to resist. Her parents initially pushed back on an idol career. The compromise? If she got scouted by an agency, they’d support her dream.
In April 2017, competing at the Incheon Youth Dance Competition, she was spotted by a Starship Entertainment agent. She became a trainee at fourteen. She trained for nearly four and a half years — a period of grinding discipline, growth spurts, and identity formation — before the world finally got to meet her.
On December 1, 2021, IVE debuted with ELEVEN, and they didn’t just enter the K-pop conversation. They rewrote it. Within a single week, they’d won their first music show. By year’s end, “ELEVEN” was charting globally. Gaeul, positioned as main dancer and lead rapper, brought something specific to IVE’s visual language from the start: an intensity beneath the polish, a stillness that could detonate without warning.
“I didn’t know when I shone the most — but thanks to Dive who loved and cherished so many aspects of me, I think I’ve become the shining Gaeul of IVE.”
IVE’s Ascent: Every Era, A New Edge
The years since debut have been a relentless creative sprint. Love Dive (2022) became IVE’s first number-one on the Circle Digital Chart and earned Song of the Year at the Golden Disc Awards, MAMA Awards, and Melon Music Awards — a trifecta that announced them not as rising stars, but as the thing rising stars aspire to become.
After Like followed with a second chart-topper. Then came the full-length album I’ve IVE in 2023, where Gaeul made history with her first official songwriting credit — penning rap verses for “ROYAL,” alongside lyric contributions to “Kitsch,” “Hypnosis,” “Not Your Girl,” and “Next Page.”
She wasn’t just performing the group’s music anymore. She was building it.
By 2025, the group’s third EP IVE Empathy debuted at number one on the Circle Album Chart, its lead single “Rebel Heart” achieving a perfect all-kill. That same year, Gaeul took on choreographic duties for two IVE tracks — TKO and B-side ♥beats — marking her evolution from performer to creative architect. Her stated goal for ♥beats? Highlight every individual member while keeping the energy true to the song’s hip-hop playfulness. That’s the kind of holistic, member-first thinking that defines how she moves through this industry.
Then came Revive+ (2026), a second studio album whose pre-release single “Bang Bang” became IVE’s sixth perfect all-kill. The group that debuted by reshaping the K-pop debut template is now reshaping what a K-pop legacy looks like.
The KNIGHT Shoot: Two Faces, One Truth
Look One: Sweet Reverie
Back in that pink garage. The Nissan Figaro — a cult-classic Japanese retro-future compact that could only exist in a K-pop editorial — is Gaeul’s co-star for the shoot’s softer act.
She leans with a casual confidence that can’t be taught, eyes direct, expression walking the line between dreamy and knowing.
The styling layers pastel-on-pastel — white collared shirt beneath the ruched pink pinafore, white tights carrying the palette to the floor — while the cyan neon splash from the windshield adds just enough edge to keep it from being simply “cute.”
This is Gaeul as her fans know her privately: the self-described “sloth,” the member who loves winter and pink and mystery novels, who jokes she’d be “grandma” of any friend group. The warmth is real. But so is the precision — even in softness, there’s architecture.
Look Two: Dark Sovereignty
The concrete bunker setting for Look Two is deliberately stark. Industrial. Stripped of softness. And Gaeul fills it entirely.
The strapless black gown sweeps to the floor in architectural volume, the gloves extend past the elbow, and the top hat-and-feather headpiece adds at least another thirty centimetres to her silhouette — transforming her into something between a gothic showgirl and a living monument. Smoky eyes.
Bare shoulders. Zero warmth, maximum intention.
This is the Gaeul that stage fans recognize: the one who carries choreography in her body like a second nervous system, whose performances have a quality of contained detonation. The editorial captures something her rap cadence has always carried — a coolness that isn’t distance. It’s mastery.
“As it was my first solo song, I had many concerns about what concept to choose and how to express the song in my own style. I practiced a lot, and incorporated many of my own ideas. I felt I grew a lot during the process.”
That first solo track — Odd, from Revive+ — is the through-line connecting both editorial looks. Because “Odd” isn’t sweet or cool. It’s both, at once, something singular.
Beyond the Stage: A Creative Universe Expanding
In February 2026, Gaeul launched her personal YouTube channel, Gaeul’s Temperature, under Starship Entertainment — a direct line between her and the global Dive fandom she describes as her mirror. The same month, she graced the cover of WWD Korea, speaking candidly about artistic growth.
In March, she appeared in Cosmopolitan Korea. And in April, beyond this very KNIGHT pictorial, she was selected as an ambassador for South Korea’s national “2026 Reading Korea” campaign, hosted by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism — attending the launch at the iconic Starfield COEX Library with characteristic quiet grace.
Fashion has always been a fluent second language for Gaeul. Her editorial credits span Chanel events, Dolce & Gabbana launches, W Korea, L’Officiel Singapore (styled in Ralph Lauren and Cartier), Allure Korea, and most recently, Cosmopolitan Korea featuring POLÈNE. Each appearance has sharpened a distinct personal aesthetic — one that lives, not unlike this KNIGHT editorial, in the creative tension between softness and sharpness.
She also holds a third-degree black belt in Hapkido. The sloth has layers.
No conversation about Gaeul is complete without Dive — IVE’s official fandom name, a play on the group’s identity and an invitation into their world.
What’s remarkable about IVE’s fan culture is how collaborative it feels: a group that actively invites their audience into creative decisions, who shares the architecture of their artistry openly, who credits fans explicitly for shaping who they become.
Gaeul’s relationship with Dive has a particular tenderness to it. She has spoken about how her fans helped her discover which version of herself shines brightest.
That isn’t idol-speak. For someone who spent four and a half years in the controlled, opaque world of trainee development, the feedback loop of genuine fan love was formative. Dive didn’t just receive Gaeul — they helped build her.
IVE’s second world tour SHOW WHAT I AM is currently running, with upcoming stops across Manila, Singapore, Macau, Australia, New Zealand, and a landmark performance at Tokyo Dome in June 2026. For a group whose debut charted on Billboard’s World Digital Song Sales in their first week, Tokyo Dome feels less like a milestone and more like an inevitability.
No conversation about Gaeul is complete without Dive — IVE’s official fandom name, a play on the group’s identity and an invitation into their world. What’s remarkable about IVE’s fan culture is how collaborative it feels: a group that actively invites their audience into creative decisions, who shares the architecture of their artistry openly, who credits fans explicitly for shaping who they become.
Gaeul’s relationship with Dive has a particular tenderness to it. She has spoken about how her fans helped her discover which version of herself shines brightest. That isn’t idol-speak. For someone who spent four and a half years in the controlled, opaque world of trainee development, the feedback loop of genuine fan love was formative. Dive didn’t just receive Gaeul — they helped build her.
IVE’s second world tour SHOW WHAT I AM is currently running, with upcoming stops across Manila, Singapore, Macau, Australia, New Zealand, and a landmark performance at Tokyo Dome in June 2026. For a group whose debut charted on Billboard’s World Digital Song Sales in their first week, Tokyo Dome feels less like a milestone and more like an inevitability.
Final Frame: The Shining Gaeul
Both images from this KNIGHT editorial will live on fan mood boards and Pinterest grids for years. The pink-and-pastel Gaeul beside her Figaro. The all-black Gaeul commanding empty space like it owes her something. Neither is a performance. Both are true.
Kim Ga-eul trained for four and a half years to debut in one second. She has spent the four years since building, quietly and persistently, toward an artist identity that no single concept can contain. She choreographs for her group. She writes her own rap verses. She launched a solo track, Odd, that she shaped from the inside out. She covered WWD Korea and is now covering KNIGHT.
The “autumn” girl is in full bloom — and she is, finally, fully herself.
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Credits & Rights
Photography & Editorial: KNIGHT Magazine (China) — April 2026 Issue Feature Article: Kpoppie Magazine Published by: Velocity Entertainment Inc — Japan / New Zealand Artist: Gaeul (Kim Ga-eul) of IVE, under Starship Entertainment Styling: KNIGHT Magazine Creative Team Interview: KNIGHT Magazine Editorial Team Article Writer: Kpoppie Magazine Editorial Staff
© 2026 Kpoppie Magazine / Velocity Entertainment Inc Japan & New Zealand. All rights reserved. Reproduction of this article, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from Velocity Entertainment Inc is strictly prohibited. All image rights remain with KNIGHT Magazine and Starship Entertainment. IVE and Gaeul are trademarks of Starship Entertainment. This article is published under editorial license for cultural and journalistic purposes.
Kpoppie Magazine is a publication of Velocity Entertainment Inc, operating across Japan and New Zealand, dedicated to celebrating K-pop culture, fashion, and artistry for the Asia-Pacific region and global fandom community.