In Teen Vogue’s May/June 2025 cover story, KATSEYE member Lara Raj opens up about the inspirations behind her style and how she uses it to represent her Indian culture. Among the many aspects of her typical beauty routine, one of the things most noted by fans, known as EYEKONS, is her bindi.
Ever since she debuted on the competition series Dream Academy to earn her spot in HYBE and Universal Music Group subsidiary Geffen’s collaborative global girl group, Lara has been known to wear a bindi with many of her looks, regardless of her makeup or outfit for the day. The bindi is a cultural staple for many South Asians, representing core Hindu beliefs and highlighting moments of bonding between friends and family.
Such is relatable for Lara, who tells Teen Vogue that her love for fashion and beauty was ignited by her family, especially her mother. “My mom loves to wear her traditional wedding jewelry with American clothes, which I always thought was so cool growing up,” she says.
While the fusion of her shared Easter and Western cultures was inspired by her mother, Lara’s dedication to wearing these blended looks on stage also comes from facing stereotypes in her childhood and how she could change things for the next generation.
She explains, “I really wanted to make something like the Ohm necklace or the bindi into a fashion statement and something that people could see as, ‘Whoa, that's so sick!’ and, ‘That's so fire!’ And other brown girls, they want to wear it too, as a thing. It's not something to get made fun of for. Because I always got made fun of for it, I really want to change that.”
Since these are part of her signature style, they’re likely to stay, even while she experiments with new trends. “I'm trying to be a little bit more chic recently,” she says in our interview. “Chic is so not my thing. I love sleek clothing, and I like black. I like glamour. And Diesel, Balenciaga, those are my favorite brands in the world. But I'm trying to get more into Miu Miu, Chanel. I even bought Tabis a couple weeks ago and I'm trying to experiment with that.”
“I feel like it feels a little uncomfortable on me because it's so posh in a way, which is so the opposite of my style,” she adds. “But I don't want to be boxed anymore. I feel like I have a style and that's my thing, and it's always black or chrome or something like that, and I want to expand and be a little bit more fashionable.”
Read more about Lara and KATSEYE’s personal style in their Teen Vogue cover story here.
