Five-year-old online fashion icon Alonso Mateo found a new batch of fans in South Korea after his photos went viral early Thursday.

South Korean netizens expressed keen interest in the minute fashionista. “Alonso Mateo” became one of the most popular search terms on the country’s most-visited portal Naver.

Dubbed “world’s most fashionable kid” by South Korean netizens, Alonso has 28,000 followers on the photo-sharing website Instagram, and a fan page on Facebook which has over 35,000 likes.

Alonso is uncannily skilled in dressing up in tailor-made suits and designer blazers, mixed with accessories such as scarves and glasses. Even the way he poses in photos resembles that of an adult model, casually putting his hands in one pocket and looking away nonchalantly.

Alonso appears to have inherited his fashion sense from his mother Luisa Fernanda Espinosa, a freelance stylist who started the whole “Alonso phonon” by posting snaps of her son on her own Instagram account.

Some South Koreans expressed their discontent, saying the mother should not clad her son in expensive clothes to satisfy her vanity. They pointed out the child’s wardrobe apparently consists of nothing but clothes from pricey fashion brands such as Dior, Kitson Kids, Gucci and Crewcut.

Alonso, however, said the way he dresses is to his own liking.

“I love suits, sneakers and sunglasses. I like to dress like my dad, because he has cool suits,” he has been quoted as saying.

(khnews@heraldcorp.com)