Review | Netflix K-drama review: The Fabulous – Chae Soo-bin, Minho star in vapid fashion industry drama that could use some tailoring

Chae Soo-bin plays bubbly fashion PR Pyo ji-eun and K-pop star Minho the puppy-boy ex she has hooked up with again, Ji Woo-min, who also works in fashion

Ji-eun is playing Woo-min off against her businessman boyfriend, and the show is torn between fantasy and relatability as it charts their love triangle

Reading Time:3 minutes

Chae Soo-bin in a still from The Fabulous, in which she plays a bubbly fashion PR in a love triangle. The show tries to strike a balance between fantasy and relatability.

Published: 4:00pm, 23 Dec 2022

2/5 stars

High fashion and high jinks collide in the incandescent The Fabulous, a young professionals drama headlined by Chae Soo-bin and Minho of the K-pop boy group Shinee.

Hedonism and materialism are the order of the day in this new Netflix original series; given the focus on high-powered and hip young professionals and luxury brands, Sex and the City immediately comes to mind as the template for the show.

However, while fellow Korean drama Thirty-Nine borrowed elements of Sex and the City to decorate a grounded story of friendship earlier this year, The Fabulous is all razzle-dazzle and it quickly drifts off into its own bubblegum fantasy of romantic aspirations.

The Carrie Bradshaw stand-in here is fashion PR pro Pyo Ji-eun, played with unquenchable bubbliness by Chae. Speaking of bubbles, the show is positively drowning in bubbly, with champagne flutes fuelling most of the characters at all hours, which might account for their interminable peppiness.