Golden Child: Ddara Woollim Mall Merch Review

Golden Child came back with their second full repackage album Ddara on October 5th, 2021, and Woollim Mall had quite the turnaround by already announcing the list of official merchandise for this era on October 8th at 11:30AM KST.

Golden Child 2nd Album Repackage [DDARA] Official MD:

• HOODIE (black or white) / 65,000₩ / $55.06 USD
• L HOLDER SET / 25,000₩ / $21.18 USD

Preorders for these items are from October 8th at 2PM through October 14th at 23:59PM KST. This round of merchandise has this preorder window, however Woollim Mall still lists the L Holder Set for sale (as of November 14th).

On October 12th, Woollim Mall also announced a Polaroid event where customers who purchase at least 50,000₩ worth of [DDARA] MD are automatically entered into a lottery to win 1 of 10 Polaroids.

On the last day of preorders, October 14th at 10:02AM KST, Woollim Mall posted a clearer preview image of the merch. Honestly this made me less excited for the L holder set as it confirmed the photos were from the Ddara Version B album shoot instead of perhaps another photoshoot with alternate outfits from the music video.

Again,I'm not really enticed to buy from Woollim Mall for the chance of a Polaroid (because what are the odds). It took a few days for Kpoptown to list both items, but when they did (prior to Woollim Mall's preorder period ending) I ordered from there. On Kpoptown, the Hoodie is $64.90 USD (I chose only to purchase the white version), the L Holder Set is $25.90 USD, and DHL shipping was $29.00 USD, for a total of $119.80 USD. Ordering the same two items via Woollim Mall would have totalled to $132.91 USD.

Both items are expected to ship starting on November 8th.

My friend had ordered hers through Woollim Mall and received hers on November 10th. And as a pleasant surprise, hers arrived with a signed Polaroid! Her Polaroid was wrapped in bubblewrap. 

I received an email from Kpoptown on November 10th notifying me that my package has shipped. My packaged arrived on November 12th!

My package came in a small cardboard box with my merch wrapped in an outer layer of bubblewrap. The hoodie came in a plastic bag packaging that was folded in half, and to the right were 2 air pocket bags to keep everything snug.

Underneath the hoodie is the L holder set wrapped in bubblewrap.

As I took out the hoodie bag, I couldn't believe my eyes! (Cue "내 눈을 의심해"^^) There was a signed Polaroid of Bomin in a clear sleeve taped onto the packaging! I'm seriously at a loss for words, taking in my bad luck with online orders, and then my most recent good luck of receiving my first signed Polaroid not even two weeks ago. I thought I had forgone the chance of winning a Polaroid by choosing Kpoptown, but I'm so grateful it did work out. It's interesting how my Polaroid was packaged like this, as opposed to my friend's with bubblewrap; it makes me wonder if Kpoptown intentionally received the Polaroid and stuck it to my order, or if Woollim Mall packaged the Polaroid like that and Kpoptown left it as is.

Here is a closer look at the Polaroid^^ It's the same background as my friend's Polaroid too; I wonder where and when they took these! And I still can't believe I now have signed Polaroids of my first two biases!

And here are the Ddara merchandise! As a callout, the product sticker is larger and different in design.

Hoodie

The hoodie comes in a black plastic zip lock bag. The product sticker with the holographic Woollim seal is on the front of the bag.

Here is how the hoodie looks straight out of the bag.

And here is the hoodie! It is one size, made of cotton, and comes in either black or white. There is a large kangaroo pocket. The backside is the same color as well. The music video screenshot is of different material from Golden Child's past tops ("One" tee, "Bong Bong" tee, and YES. hoodie), where this time the image feels like the same material as the hoodie itself. Additional details include wide but thin drawstrings with sewn edges with metal openings at the end of the hood, and the DDARA era Golden Child logo at the end of the left sleeve.

Here is a closer look at the image of the hoodie. You can see there is a faint edge between the creamish background of the screenshot and the white of the hoodie. This is the reason I chose a white hoodie, so that the image would be more seamless than a cream rectangular box on a black hoodie.

I always love the branding of Golden Child's clothes and the little details put into them, such as the clothing tag. The tag inside the neckline is the same as the one on the "Bong Bong" tee, with the Game Changer era Golden Child logo printed on it (which is weird since DDARA does have its own font and era logo).

The backside of the hoodie just under the neckline has "DDARA" printed in black with this era's font.

As this hoodie is one size like all of Golden Child's clothes so far, it is quite large and roomy. I'm 5'4" and 105lb, and this is how the hoodie fits on me. The sleeves are quite long that just the tips of my fingers barely stick out, and the body is a nice length that my jean pockets are almost fully covered. The hoodie itself is not too thick and not too thin, so it's nice to wear underneath a jacket if I'm going out in the colder months.

L Holder Set

The L holder set comes in a paper envelope, and the outer packaging is a clear plastic resealable bag.

Here is the backside of the packaging. The envelope flap itself is fully made of paper without any sticky substance so you don't need to risk damaging the envelope when opening it. The center of the flap has the DDARA era Golden Child logo. The new product sticker with the holographic Woollim seal is on the backside of the clear bag.

Here are how the contents were packaged inside the envelope: the 10 posters in age order starting with Daeyeol, and then the two L holders at the bottom.

To everyone's surprise, the two L holders are the same exact image. I originally thought Eline messed up yet again, but on the bright side you can now use one L holder and preserve the other one.

Here is the L holder with the Daeyeol poster inside. Even though the holder is translucent, you can hardly see the image of the poster.

These L holders are made of plastic film and are meant to hold A4 sized documents. The backside has "DDARA" and "Golden Child" printed in this era's font.

The posters are A4 size and are more like large glossy postcards with white backs. The fronts are prone to fingerprints.

Here are Seungmin, Jaehyun, Jibeom, and Donghyun.

And here are Joochan and Bomin.

Overall, I'm really happy that Woollim Mall has been holding events for their various official MD, and even more happy that I can confirm that there are winners for the Polaroid events, especially since they don't notify the winners and it's a matter of properly checking your package to see if a surprise Polaroid made it in^^ I am also beyond happy with both Woollim Mall and Kpoptown for this experience especially when I've had trouble with both companies. As for the Ddara merchandise, I like the variety of practical items (hoodie and L holder) and paper goods (posters). I also like how the hoodie uses an image outside of the Ddara album photobooks.

Ordering My Golden Child Ddara Albums via Ktown4u and Makestar

It's been quite the year for Golden Child in terms of music releases with the group releasing their second repackage album Ddara on October 5th, 2021. On September 23rd just after 3PM KST,Woollim dropped the album details: 2 normal versions (Woollim became more generous this time with offering 2 random photocards out of 50 amongst both versions; there is also 1 random film photo out of 10 amongst both versions). Preorders also opened at 3PM.

Oddly enough I've felt so burnt out with collecting for each era this year (I'm about 50% complete for both YES. and Game Changer normal album inclusions with no hopes of finishing them) that I didn't feel motivated to buy multiple copies this era (which I never thought was possible...). But after some debate, my friend and I decided to order multiple copies from 2 sites and split the pulls for better randomization.

The album is quite large so shipping is higher, so my friends and I didn't want to go crazy on ordering too many albums. I preordered 2 sets (4 albums total) from Ktown4u, which came with 4 folded first press external posters (2 versions) and 4 sets of the first press mini poster sets (2 posters within 1 set) with DHL shipping for about $123 USD. My friend preordered 2 sets (4 albums total) from Makestar, which came with the same first press benefits as Ktown4u plus 1 Makestar exclusive holographic photocard per album, with DHL shipping for about $103 USD. Even though Makestar is substantially cheaper, we figured that we'd get our Ktown albums faster and have better, more randomized pulls than from Makestar.

I had another order from Ktown (the Singles magazine, Eunbi albums, and Etude House cream) which I had preordered prior to the magazine's September 24th release date but still hadn't shipped for weeks. I was getting weary of Ktown, and then on October 11th at 12PM KST, Makestar announced a Ddara 1:1 video call event with an October 14th KST order deadline. I decided to cancel my Ktown Ddara order (which I think prompted for them to finally ship out my previous Ktown order!) and look into Makestar instead. For this second Makestar event, there are no more first press benefits and again there is 1 random Makestar exclusive photocard per album out of 10 (different from the previous event). This time you have to order by the number of albums you'd like (with the versions being random), instead of having the option of buying by sets of 2. I decided to order 5 albums, and with DHL shipping the total was under $123 USD. Like usual, there was a PR event as well. The video call and PR event winner announcement would be posted on October 15th after 3PM KST.

I continued to check the event page and the announcement showed up at about 3:30PM KST. I was shocked to see that I had actually won the PR event! I'm at #8^^ There are 10 randomly selected winners for the PR event, and the prize is 1 random member's signed Polaroid out of 10 taken during the Makestar video call event from October 16th. The Polaroid will be sent along with my order. I also received an email at 3:32PM KST in both Korean and English confirming that I had won the PR event and that the Polaroid would be sent with my album(s) purchased.

The post here on out won't be heavy on details or photos as I wasn't originally planning about blogging about my Ddara album orders.

The Makestar 1 event page stated that they would start shipping on October 8th. My friend's package arrived on October 18th. Unfortunately the cardboard box took quite a beating, with a large hole on the side. Fortunately, everything was inside. Here are our pulls from Makestar 1:

• Makestar 1 exclusive holographic photocards: Daeyeol, Y, Donghyun, and Joochan (daeyoon and dongchan^^)
• Film photos: Daeyeol, Y, Jaehyun, and Donghyun
• Album photocards: 1 Y, 1 Jaehyun, 1 Jibeom, 1 Joochan, and 3 different Bomin

For the album photocards, unfortunately 1 album was missing 1 photocard so we only received 7 instead of 8 photocards. Despite missing 1 photocard, overall the pulls were satisfying since there were no duplicates amongst the 4 albums.

The Makestar 2 event page didn't state when they would start shipping (I think they might only do that for preorders), but my package shipped on October 29th and arrived on November 1st. It actually arrived along with my Woohyun With 1 event order; Woohyun's is on the left and Golden Child's is on the right. Luckily everything looked intact.

I think the Makestar boxes have really upgraded this time (or this is the first time I'm noticing it) but now there is one corner that is held together by thick staples. This applies to both my Woohyun package (top left) and Golden Child package (bottom right).

And now onto the unboxing of my Makestar 2 package! I recorded my unboxing in case my order was incorrect, which I do recommend doing for any package as mistakes do happen. Opening up my package reveals the albums stacked together and wrapped in a layer of bubblewrap, and lying on a bed of air pockets. There was still quite a lot of room in the box but regardless the albums arrived safely.

Flipping the stack of albums over revealed the Polaroid and Makestar 2 exclusive photocards!

Here is everything! The Makestar 2 exclusive photocards each came in their own penny sleeve, then inside another larger clear plastic bag that was taped onto the bubblewrap. The Polaroid also came in a penny sleeve with a sticker label with my order number, name, and winner number that was then taped onto the bubblewrap. The Polaroid definitely could've slipped out as the penny sleeve wasn't sealed shut, but regardless it is here and arrived safely! AND I CAN'T BELIEVE I GOT JIBEOM! I would genuinely be happy with any member, but I'm really extremely grateful for having Jibeom who has been my phone screen background since April 2020 and who has given me so much happiness these past few years^^

I already had this frame but nothing fitting to be framed, until now^^ It still feels so surreal to me!

Here are our pulls from Makestar 2: 

• Albums: 1 Version A and 4 Version B
• Makestar 2 exclusive photocards: Seungmin, Jaehyun, Jibeom, Donghyun, and Bomin (The order was actually Donghyun, then Jibeom, then Bomin, then Jaehyun, and then Seungmin. I couldn't express how excited I was to receive my top 3 consecutively!)
• Film photos: 2 Daeyeols, 2 Ys, and 1 Jaehyun
• Album Photocards: 1 Daeyeol, 3 Tag (1 dup), 1 Jaehyun (same as from Makestar 1), 1 Donghyun, and 4 Joochans (2 dups)

My Makestar pulls have always been bad in terms of pulling duplicates, but this is some luck to have duplicates within my package AND with my friend's Makestar 1 package. But in the end with some trades, it'll all work out^^

Coming up I'll have an unboxing post about both versions of the Ddara albums^^