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After first million pre-orders, Ateez ONLY boy group to be part of Victoria Albert museum

K-pop fans are proud as Ateez hit their first million mark for the pre-orders of their upcoming album ‘The World Ep.1: Movement’

Looks like ‘The World Ep.1: Movement’ is a new beginning for Ateez’s fictional storyline as well as real-life achievements. Fans were excited as the K-pop boy group used guerrilla-style PR to first announce the album followed by a rebellion concept. Even the title track ‘Guerrilla’ is quite different from the usual dance-trap discography that Ateez is known for and has everyone curious about Ateez’s new era. And now we are getting a lot of firsts from their first million pre-orders to being part of the Victoria and Albert Museum of London.

On July 24, it was reported that Ateez had crossed 1.1 million pre-orders for ‘The World Ep.1: Movement’. This is the first time that the boy group has crossed the million mark. It is further impressive as they do not come from the Big 4 K-pop Labels (JYPE, SM, YG, HYBE) and are the first fourth-gen boy group from a non-Big 4 Label to do so. Atinys (Ateez’s fandom) are proud of the organic growth as Ateez went from 430 copies sold on day 1 of their debut album ‘Treasure Ep.1’ in 2018 to a million pre-orders in 2022. The record for the highest pre-orders Ateez album was previously held by the 2021 release ‘Zero: Fever Part.3’ for 810k copies.

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Ateez’s outfits part of Victoria Albert museum

Even the performance preview for ‘Guerrilla’ crossed 1.4 million YouTube views in less than a week. If that wasn’t enough, it looks like Ateez is also being acknowledged for its contribution to the Hallyu Wave. On July 25, it was announced that their stage costumes will be displayed at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. It will be part of the ‘Hallyu! The Korean Wave’ exhibition. The outfits that have been chosen are the blue and silver hanboks (traditional Korean outfit) that the boys wore for their ‘Inception’ stage in 2020 and the British punk outfits of the ‘Fireworks (I’m the One)’ music video in 2021.

It has been reported that the hanboks being displayed at the museum were designed by C-ZANN E who weave Korean motifs into their everyday outfits. Designer Lee Seo-jeong shared that to visualize ‘Inception’, they had been inspired by the Korean classic literature ‘The Cloud Dream of the Nine’. They had layered the hanboks with the country’s first school uniform along with Ateez’s logo. The outfit had further added more meaning to the stage as Ateez had performed on Korea’s National Liberation Day. As for the ‘Fireworks’ outfits, organizers were impressed with the way Ateez took the British punk fashion and added their own spin to it proving themselves as a representative K-pop group.

Ateez also surprised everyone as 180k fans had attended their second world tour that they held in Seoul, USA, Europe and Japan and have already announced their third world tour. Fans are proud that Ateez is the first boy group whose outfits are part of the museum. They are also the third K-pop act following PSY and aespa. Other Hallyu Wave exhibits include BIGBANG G-dragon’s statue, items from the Oscar-winning film ‘Parasite’ and the 2021 Netflix phenomenon ‘Squid Game’. The outfits will be part of the Victoria and Albert Museum from September 2022 to June 2023.

‘So famous’

Fans were proud as they made tweets like, “Ateez hanbok outfits will be displayed on museum to promote Korean culture my ateez is so famous they even have now a whole exhibition.” Another Atiny joked, “*How to rob a museum* yahoo answers.” One shared, “Ateez deserves to be in museum.” Another fan pointed out, “ATEEZ is the only Kpop boygroup having their outfits exhibited in Victoria and Albert Museum, alongside Aespa and PSY's. Influential Korean Wave items such as G-Dragon statue, Parasite and Squid Game are here 😭💗 so proud!!” One fan added, “No cause these outfits were made for them especially.”