President Yoon's First Weekend in Office...Surging Interest in Shoes Bought at Department Store

On his first weekend after taking office, President Yoon Seok-yeol enjoys shopping at Shinsegae Department Store Gangnam Branch. Photo by Reader, Yonhap News Agency

[Asia Economy Intern Reporter Kim Se-eun] Attention is focused on the shoe brand purchased by President Yoon Seok-yeol during shopping on his first weekend after taking office.

On the 14th, President Yoon and his wife Kim Geon-hee shopped for about 20 minutes at the shoe section on the 4th floor of Shinsegae Department Store Gangnam Branch in Seocho-gu, Seoul, purchasing two pairs of functional comfort shoes.

At the domestic brand Vainer store, they bought black slip-on shoes without laces, and at the Danish shoe brand Ecco, they purchased black comfort shoes.

Following the news of the Yoon presidential couple's shopping, Vainer's official website experienced a surge in traffic throughout the weekend, and the server went down at 6 p.m. today.

Vainer is a handmade shoe brand launched in 1961 by Italian Vainer di Pietra and began being imported into Korea in 1996. In 2011, Kim Won-gil, a former shoemaker and current CEO of Vainer, acquired the company.

It is known that the shopping on this day was carried out without prior notice to Shinsegae Department Store.

President Yoon visited the store dressed comfortably, accompanied by about eight bodyguards. Citizens who were at the department store at the time took photos of the presidential couple shopping and uploaded them on social media, revealing the event.

Regarding this shopping, the spokesperson's office explained, "President Yoon likes shoes that are comfortable for his feet and match well with suits, with 'almost no heels.' The shoes he is currently wearing were bought three years ago, but as they became too worn out from long use, new shoes were purchased under the initiative of Mrs. Kim Geon-hee."