바버렛츠 The Barberettes “Be My Baby” (Cover of The Ronettes)

The Barberettes (Korean: 바버렛츠) is a South Korean retro, doo-wop female group that debuted in 2014 as a trio, and is based in Seoul. With their covers and original music, they reproduce the sound of the 50s-60s music, and are referred to as a time slip girl group who travel back to the times of barbershop music and harmonizing girl groups. The group is composed of Shinae An Wheeler (Korean: 안신애) and Seon (or Sunnie) Lee Kyeong (Korean: 이경선). In 2019 The Barberettes and Sweet Sorrow form a harmony collab group SBSB (Korean: 스바스바).

The group started singing, as a trio, for fun in October 2012, when Wheeler had the idea of creating a retro-inspired girl group. Wheeler and Grace Kim were already singing solo for the same jazz band, and Park began taking vocal lessons from Wheeler. They performed at a number of places, including the indie music venues in the Hongdae area near Hongik University in Seoul, and for audiences of the older Korean generation, releasing their first album on May 27, 2014.

The name “Barberettes” was chosen because they wanted to name themselves after the a cappella barbershop music style, hoping to use a name like “Barbershop Quartet”, but lacking a fourth member, they added the suffix “ettes”, like many girl groups of the 1950s and 1960s.

They often use one microphone for performances,initially to imitate that era’s girl groups, but later realizing the advantage when they found they could hear each other better, which helped them control the harmony balance. They also use costumes, make-up and choreography to re-create the effect.