BTS’ Jimin crowned runway’s best as braided hair goes viral in ‘Jimerica’: A winning 2026 for the star

Between the runway and the stadium stage, Jimin is proving he might genuinely have it all: fashion cred, viral hair, and a fanbase loud enough to be heard from space.

Fan-voting platform Picnic just crowned Jimin the artist most destined for the runway this year, and it wasn't close. He pulled in 32,629 votes, well ahead of Cortis's James (26,420) and Meovv's Gawon (15,359) in a poll that ran two weeks, from July 10 to 24, and drew participants from 175 countries.

The criteria: Fashion sense, brand power, and stage presence, categories where Jimin has been dominating. As a Dior global ambassador, he turned heads at Paris Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2027 in June, showing up in an Edwardian-inspired velvet coat that had the fashion industry buzzing.

A Picnic spokesperson put it simply, as quoted by Korea Joong Ang Daily: Fashion is one of the clearest ways an artist can show off their personality and global pull, and this poll proves Jimin's appeal has spilled past music into style and lifestyle territory.

His fashion footprint isn't limited to red carpets, either. The shirt Jimin wore during BTS's halftime performance at the 2026 FIFA World Cup final went for a staggering $110,000 at Christie's charity auction benefiting the FIFA Global Citizen Education Fund, a sum that reportedly matched what the tournament's official match ball fetched. Not bad for a piece of stage wardrobe.

If the fashion poll wasn't enough, Jimin's actual hair has been having its own viral moment. At BTS's Gillette Stadium concert in Massachusetts, he debuted a braided hairstyle that lit up the stadium's LED screens, and lit up social media right along with it. Pop culture account Pop Core was quick to gush over the look, and it snowballed from there.

The Massachusetts shows, as quoted by Star News Korea, themselves became something of a phenomenon. Local outlets covering the concerts noted just how loud the crowd got specifically for Jimin, pointing to his flowing hair and striking features as instant crowd-pleasers. One review singled out the audience's reaction to his vocals during the "Fake Love" chorus, comparing the tone to something soft and dove-like.

By the end of the run, fans had coined a new term for the whole spectacle: "Jimerica", a mashup of Jimin and America that pretty much sums up how thoroughly he took over New England for a few nights. Hashtags like "JIMERICA LOVES JIMIN" trended in the aftermath, cementing what fans already knew: between the runway wins, the record-breaking auction, and stadiums chanting his name.