Seoul City Launches K-Fashion Sales... Largest Ever On- and Offline Order Fair

Held Online and Offline from 13th to 19th
Record High with 120 Famous and Emerging Domestic Brands, 120 Overseas Buyers, and More... First Hybrid Event Since COVID-19

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Cheol-young] The largest fashion order exhibition in Korea, attended by over 1,000 domestic and international fashion industry professionals including more than 120 well-known and emerging domestic designer brands and 120 overseas buyers from the U.S., China, and other countries, will be held in Seoul.

On the 11th, the Seoul Metropolitan Government announced that the "2022 S/S Seoul Fashion Week Trade Show," one of the main programs of Seoul Fashion Week, will be held both online and offline from the 13th to the 19th.

The "Trade Show" is a fashion order exhibition where practical business activities such as order consultations and contracts take place between domestic and international professional buyers and domestic designers to revitalize the domestic fashion industry and discover and nurture new brands. Since 2015, the Seoul Metropolitan Government has been hosting it as part of the Seoul Fashion Week event.

This year's "Trade Show" is the largest ever and the first event to be held concurrently offline since the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, it will be co-hosted for the first time with "Fashion Kode," a fashion culture market by the Korea Creative Content Agency, which is expected to enhance the qualitative and quantitative levels of domestic and international buyers and strengthen marketing and promotional synergies for participating brands.

Seoul applies a pre-matching system to help participating brands achieve substantial order results at the "Trade Show." Preferences of brands and overseas buyers are analyzed, and past order performance is reviewed to pre-match brands and buyers with high order potential, followed by one-on-one online (Zoom) consultations on-site. The plan is to support an average of more than eight buyer consultations per brand.

Order consultations will be conducted in two ways: ▲ online consultations with overseas buyers from China, the Americas, Europe, etc., and ▲ offline consultations with domestic buyers. Online consultations will be held for five days from the 13th to the 19th at Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP) and Seoul Partners House, with overseas buyers participating via video call. Offline consultations will take place for three days from the 13th to the 15th at Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP) Notification Hall 1.

To facilitate smooth order consultations, Seoul provides interpretation services by language group during overseas buyer consultations. English and Chinese translations of brand and designer introduction materials are also provided free of charge to support overseas expansion. Furthermore, six domestic brands preparing for overseas expansion will be connected to distribution networks in Shanghai, China, targeting the Asian market, to establish local showroom placements.

Park Dae-woo, Director of Economic and Job Planning at Seoul Metropolitan Government, said, "As this Trade Show marks the first offline event resumption since the COVID-19 pandemic, we expect it to revitalize the stagnant domestic fashion industry," and added, "Through this largest-ever Trade Show, we will promote the competitiveness of our designers' fashion worldwide and provide multifaceted support to lead to substantial K-fashion sales."