Seoul City Paves the Way for K-Fashion Exports to Europe

In September this year, Seoul Fashion Week brands will make their debut on the Milan Fashion Week stage, showcasing trends for next spring and summer, and opening the door for K-fashion exports to Europe’s key distribution networks.

Milan Fashion Week, one of the four major fashion weeks (Paris, Milan, New York, London), is a global fashion event where over 150 diverse brands, from famous luxury brands like Prada, Gucci, Versace, to promising new designers, participate and more than 60 fashion shows are held.

Seoul City sets out to promote the value of K-fashion on the global stage using Milan, a fashion capital, as a base and to lay the groundwork for domestic fashion designers' overseas advancement.

While the global Hallyu (Korean Wave) craze has increased the appeal of K-brands, K-fashion still faces disappointing sales in Europe, a continent known as the cradle of fashion.

Seoul City and the 'Italian National Fashion Association' signed a memorandum of understanding at the association's headquarters in Milan on February 20th (Tuesday), the opening day of Milan Fashion Week (2.20~2.26), to support the successful entry of K-fashion brands into the European market.

The signing ceremony saw the participation of Jang Young-min, Seoul City Director of Creative Industry Planning, and Carlo Capasa, President of the Italian National Fashion Association (CNMI), who discussed specific collaborative projects to pursue following the memorandum of understanding (MOU).

This agreement signifies the importance of using Milan as a base to promote the value of K-fashion beyond Europe and to establish a foundation for the overseas expansion of domestic fashion designers.

The main contents of the agreement include ① Global marketing for Korean brands using the Milan Fashion Week platform, ② Continuous dialogue on innovation and social responsibility in the fashion industry, ③ Promotion of exchange and cooperation between fashion and beauty institutions of both cities.

Based on this agreement, Seoul City and the Italian National Fashion Association will support all necessary preparations for competitively selected K-fashion brands to make a successful debut at Milan Fashion Week in September 2024 and February 2025.

Seoul City and the Italian National Fashion Association will select capable K-fashion brands (approximately five) to present on the official stage of Milan Fashion Week and provide ongoing consulting to the selected brands until the event to ensure they receive favorable evaluations from international media and major buyers.

Starting with 'Milan, Italy,' the center of the European fashion market, efforts are underway to secure a premium distribution network, including establishing K-beauty and fashion pavilions. The plan involves detailed discussions between 'Seoul City, the Italian National Fashion Association, and distributors' to secure a K-fashion distribution network starting with famous Italian department stores, moving to European department stores, select shops, and showrooms.

Following the opening of a Seoul Fashion Week exclusive pavilion at Lotte Duty Free Shop in Ginza, Japan, in June 2023, Seoul City continues its efforts to secure a global premium distribution network for K-fashion.

Jang Young-min, Seoul City Director of Creative Industry Planning, said, "This agreement will accelerate the European entry of K-fashion brands that have great potential but have faced difficulties expanding globally due to COVID-19 and cost issues. Following the K-culture craze, we will diversify the distribution networks in the European market and strengthen the global networking of our designers so that K-fashion can receive worldwide attention."