The Business of Katseye

Three years ago, six young women — Sophia, Lara, Manon, Daniela, Megan and Yoonchae — were catapulted into instant global fame when they appeared on the Netflix reality show, The Debut: Dream Academy, beating 100,000 other contestants to be part of the pop group Katseye.

The premise was unusual. Formed through a joint venture between the South Korean music powerhouse Hybe and American record label Geffen Records, Katseye pioneered a unique cross-market model that applied Korea’s notorious idol bootcamp infrastructure with Western mainstream pop production. Their unique heritage was an added draw — the six members come from diverse countries including the US, Switzerland, the Philippines, and South Korea.

Also crucial to the group’s image-building was the insider fashion knowledge procured from close collaborators including creative director Humberto Leon, co-founder of the once-cult shopping destination Opening Ceremony and former co-designer at Kenzo, alongside stylist Katie Qian, whose clients include Tyla, Conan Gray, Camila Cabello, and Tinashe.

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Before long, Katseye earned rare, early-career recognition, featuring on the cover of i-D, Teen Vogue, InStyle, Allure, and Nylon magazines, as well as securing billboard chart placements and two Grammy nominations. Brands such as Fendi, Pandora, Lush, and Glossier soon came knocking.

In 2024, Katseye made their first fashion week appearance, attending Coach’s Spring/Summer 2025 runway show in New York. In 2025, the group featured in a Gap campaign dancing in low-rise denim to the 2003 Kelis song “Milkshake”. The ad — reported to have generated eight billion media impressions and over 500 million cross-platform views, making it Gap’s most viral and highly engaged advertisement of all time — was so widely praised that it became a textbook case study for marketers and marketing professors worldwide.

Katseye attended the Coach Spring 2025 show.

It converted sales, too. Gap saw double-digit growth in the denim category and a 7% year-on-year increase in comparable sales during Q3 2025, according to the group’s earnings report, which executives partly attribute to its campaigns with Katseye and Puerto Rican rapper Young Miko. “The strength of fan communities shows up in the number of people we see coming to our stores after launch — eager not only to shop the product worn by Katseye and Young Miko, but to see how the campaign comes to life in our retail experience,” said Fabiola Torres, Gap’s global CMO, in a Vogue Business interview earlier this year.

When Lush collaborated with Katseye in 2025, the beauty and lifestyle brand released a limited-edition purple and yellow star bath bomb, as well as six collectible artisan soaps representative of each member. For Lush’s head of concepts and collaborations Kalem Brinkworth, the intensity of the group’s fandom was a surprise. “I’ve never seen anything like it. We’ve obviously had lots of appreciation for other collaborations, but this was the first time we saw that real peak,” Brinkworth says. While Lush famously stepped away from social media in 2021, the brand still monitors online activity; posts and videos on the partnership with Katseye, shared by other accounts on TikTok and Instagram, generated over 25 million views, Brinkworth adds.

Lush collaborated with Katseye in 2025 on a limited-edition purple and yellow star bath bomb, as well as six collectible artisan soaps representative of each member.

Katseye’s partnership with Pandora in 2025 — which included a campaign where members brought the Minis charms collection to life through their personal styling and unique stories — was equally as fruitful. A single TikTok video on Pandora’s channel featuring Katseye generated more than 5.2 million views and 377,000 likes, according to Pandora CMO Jennie Farmer. “The partnership resonated strongly with younger consumers, particularly Gen Zs, who see jewelry as an extension of their identity and personal style,” she says. The collaboration also extended into the physical world: Katseye wore custom Pandora jewelry for their performance at the 2026 Grammy Awards, and in subsequent media appearances, including on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in August.

Katseye’s partnership with Pandora included a campaign where members brought the Minis charms collection to life through their personal styling and unique stories

Today, Katseye’s combined reach remains outstanding. According to Companion, the proprietary tech platform of the global social and creator agency Billion Dollar Boy, who helped crunch the data, the group currently counts 9.4 million followers on Instagram, with an average viewership of 9.3 million per post; 14 million followers on YouTube, with 8.4 million average views per post; and another 20 million followers on TikTok and 5.7 million average views per post — figures that the company notes as “surprisingly high”, with a “decent amount of content that goes viral”.

The band performed at The 52nd Annual American Music Awards.

For many fans, Katseye represented modern day girl power with diverse appeal. Their blueprint seemed unbeatable. Then, controversy hit.

In February, Hybe x Geffen announced with little explanation that Katseye member Manon Bannerman would take a hiatus. The news sent fans into a tailspin. Bannerman, viewed by many fans as the “visual” of the group (meaning that her appearance aligned with popular global beauty standards), had been the first Black artist to sign with a Hybe label. Her presence symbolized shifting boundaries in K-pop, where Black artists have faced unique pressures, despite the fact their style and sonic identities have become heavily commercialized by the industry over the years.

A wave of dramas followed, including a privacy breach that led to unauthorized photos of some members alongside personal acquaintances being published online; controversial remarks made by Daniela Avanzini — and later on, her father — criticizing other members of the group; and Megan Skiendiel’s potential “finsta” being publicly revealed.

The final formation of Katseye was revealed during a live finale of The Debut: Dream Academy.

Katseye’s music has also been divisive. After debuting in 2024 with songs like “Touch” and “Debut”, which boasted melodic vocals, the group’s discography has swung wildly between experimental through tracks like “Gnarly”, “Pinky Up”, and “Hootie Frutti,” which lean into bizarre, meme-like lyrics, and more conventional pop releases like “Animal” and “Bel Air”. Confused by Katseye’s core musical identity, listeners frequently debate whether their provocative, internet-driven style is boundary-pushing or a confused manufacturing gimmick.

The next real upset came in August when Hybe x Geffen announced that Katseye member Sophia Laforteza would also go on hiatus and therefore not take part in the group’s upcoming promotional activities. Both the management firm, along with Laforteza on her personal Instagram, indicated that the break was temporary and would be used to focus on her health and wellbeing. Fans were enraged once more when a video went viral showing only three members attending a fan event this month at Barnes & Noble at The Grove in Los Angeles. (Skiendiel later shared on social media that she had taken the day off to recover.) Some observers questioned Katseye’s commitment, while many others were left wondering if the heavy promotional schedules and expectations of the group were unrealistic and harmful.

For Grace Kao, IBM professor of sociology and of ethnicity, race and migration at Yale University, the disruptions within a short space of time were surprising and “worrisome”.

While the debates may bring negative attention to the group, the remaining members still bring plenty of reach. For example, a post shared on Katseye’s Instagram in August, featuring only four members performing at Heads in the Clouds music festival in Pasadena, California, garnered 790,000 likes and an outpouring of fan support. Likewise, a TikTok video with the four remaining members dancing to new single “Hootie Frutti” has been viewed over 13 million times and liked by over two million accounts — a figure that rivals or even surpasses many videos featuring the full original group. While the sentiment of comments across the videos are mixed, the group’s massive viewership numbers demonstrate continued fan interest. Whether the songs have true staying power, however, is another matter.

Relationships between famous artists and their fans have always veered parasocial. The rise of social media and other platforms like Weverse, which K-pop stars including BTS and Blackpink use to communicate directly with their audiences, have made this connection much stronger. Today, many people feel close to stars, because they see their lives and seemingly engage with them every day. That shared camaraderie has also resulted in special nicknames for the most devoted fans: Army for BTS, Blinks for Blackpink, and Eyekons for those who love and support Katseye.

That intimacy, however, can be a double-edged sword as fans scrutinize every move.

Recent actions have led some Katseye fans to wonder if internal friction has taken a toll on the members’ relationships with one another, which could threaten the group’s staying power and their potential for brands. After all, unlike traditional K-pop groups, whose training periods typically last between two and four years, with the most extreme going up to 10, Katseye’s bond hasn’t been built on years of living and training together. Even K-pop groups like Zerobaseone or Enhypen, who were formed by a competition show, underwent extensive training (and therefore time together) before their debut, Kao notes.