[Hipple Hip Item] The 'Padding Bag' You Wear Without Wearing... She Sold 110,000 Units

Interview with Park Choeun, CEO of Sienne
Last year's sales reached 20 billion KRW, doubling compared to one year ago
Rapid growth since Sienne brand launch in 2021

"Starting as a blogger sharing my tastes, I now run a brand called Sienne. By creating and sharing things I love, I think I was able to challenge the status quo and try new things that others wouldn’t accept."

Park Cho-eun, CEO, met at the Cienne showroom in Seongsu-dong, Seoul. She is smiling as if feeling awkward about being photographed.
[Photo by Minji Lee]

Park Cho-eun, CEO of Sienne, said in an interview with Asia Economy on the 22nd of last month at the Sienne showroom in Seongsu-dong, Seoul, "This is why Sienne can survive in the fiercely competitive fashion market where new brands emerge every day."

Sienne is a domestic designer brand that sold 110,000 'padding bags' in just one and a half years as of the end of last year. Sienne’s sales revenue last year was 20 billion KRW, up from 10 billion KRW the previous year. The padding bag was first introduced around April 2022. From then until last year, the cumulative sales revenue of the padding bag reached 7 billion KRW. Compared to last year’s sales, 40% of total revenue came from the padding bag.

CEO Park said, “The idea started with the thought that padding doesn’t have to be used only in winter,” and added, “We were able to expand our customer base through the padding bag.” Its lightweight and excellent storage capacity have been highlighted, and demand for the padding bag continues to this day. As the padding bag became a trend, other brands even started producing copycat products.

Sienne recorded its highest sales last year. While demand for the padding bag steadily increased, sales surged after collaborating with New York illustrator Amber Vittoria on knitwear, T-shirts, hats, and other products in May last year, following a proposal from the fashion platform W Concept. Amber Vittoria is a renowned artist who has collaborated with luxury brands such as Gucci and Celine. Looking at sales within W Concept last year, Sienne grew 2.5 times compared to the previous year.

The benchmark for a domestic designer brand to be considered successful is annual sales of 100 billion KRW. The so-called ‘3M’ brands?Matin Kim, Mardi Mercredi, and Marithe Francois Girbaud?are representative examples. Compared to these figures, Sienne’s sales amount to only about one-fifth.

However, Sienne’s sales stand out more because these numbers were achieved solely through the efforts of CEO Park and Sienne’s employees without external capital funding. CEO Park serves as both CEO and Creative Director (CD), planning and designing products each season herself. Sienne’s brand sensibility is vintage classic, which does not heavily follow trends.

Sienne Padding Bag
[Photo by Sienne website capture]

Sienne’s beginnings trace back to CEO Park Cho-eun’s blog. The blog, created to share her tastes, attracted attention and expanded into a blog market in 2016, eventually evolving into the brand ‘Sienne’ in 2021. At that time, a showroom was established in Hannam-dong, and the brand was launched on fashion platforms W Concept and 29CM. CEO Park said, “During the COVID-19 period, when people were not consuming clothing, I thought that instead of staying only on the blog, we needed to go offline. I met consumers who liked the blog’s clothes, gave presentations explaining how to lead Sienne, and concretized the brand through conversations.” This approach of building the brand together with existing fans became the reason Sienne developed a strong fandom compared to other designer brands. The following year, fans flocked to Sienne’s first pop-up store at The Hyundai Seoul, causing an ‘open run’ from early morning.

Sienne currently operates stores in Hannam-dong, Seongsu-dong, and The Hyundai Seoul. While domestic designer brands are rapidly increasing offline stores to connect with foreign customers as they turn their eyes to overseas markets, CEO Park responded that a cautious approach is necessary. She emphasized, “If we make highly trendy products and increase offline stores, sales will grow, but I believe dense growth is more important. It’s more important to make consumers love the brand than to sell a lot temporarily.” Currently, Sienne is preparing to open stores at The Hyundai and one other regional location.

CEO Park Cho-eun is explaining the concept of Sienne's spring products. The summer season products will be unveiled later this month.
[Photo by Minji Lee]

The same applies to overseas expansion. Rather than selling the same products introduced in the domestic market overseas, a different approach is needed for each country. CEO Park said, “We are looking at Asian markets such as Japan and China, but I think branding and products need to be handled differently. We are not considering aggressive expansion by opening offline stores.”

CEO Park is preparing new attempts. Sienne will launch a perfume product for this summer season. The concept for this summer is ‘Gypsy Rose,’ which uses roses in various ways. The perfume was created so that when wearing the clothes, a person can become like a flower, emitting fragrance as well as external beauty. CEO Park said, “I have always had the idea that we should develop a scent unique to Sienne,” and added, “This is Sienne’s first fragrance, and it will be introduced alongside clothes suitable for the season in the future.”

Last month, the bag brand ‘Antteu’ was launched. Since Sienne earned the nickname ‘bag specialty store’ with its padding bags, the idea of needing a new brand to continue this interest was reflected in this result. Antteu is holding a pop-up store at the Sienne showroom in Seongsu-dong until the 6th.

CEO Park says she wants to grow steadily while sharing her own tastes rather than just achieving annual sales of 100 billion KRW. She emphasized, “Looking at the domestic fashion market, many new brands emerge, but they also disappear quickly. What’s important is to have the ‘strength to endure’ even when trends change and to excellently show this through brand identity.”