Mayor Oh Visits Italian National Fashion Association
Proposes Milan Brand Participation in Seoul Fashion Week
Full-Scale Cooperation for K-Beauty and Fashion Expansion into Europe
On the 4th (local time), Seoul Mayor Oh Sehoon visited the Italian National Fashion Association (CNMI) and proposed expanding exchanges between Seoul Fashion Week and Milan Fashion Week.
After completing his schedule in Vienna, Austria, Mayor Oh traveled to Milan and visited the headquarters of the Italian National Fashion Association in the morning. There, he expressed his intention to strengthen the global partnership between the two cities through fashion.
Seoul Mayor Oh Sehoon is meeting with the head of the Italian National Fashion Association (CNMI), who is in charge of the Milan Fashion Week headquarters, along with other officials on the 4th (local time). Seoul City
The Italian National Fashion Association is the organizer of Milan Fashion Week, one of the world’s four major fashion weeks. The association contributes to enhancing the global status of Italian fashion by focusing on sustainability, digitalization, diversity and inclusion, and nurturing emerging brands.
On this day, the two organizations signed an agreement for mutual cooperation between Seoul Fashion Week and Milan Fashion Week to drive innovation in the fashion industry. They also discussed establishing a system for utilizing the Milan Fashion Week platform to promote Korean brands internationally, as well as enhancing exchanges and cooperation among related organizations and groups in areas such as sourcing fashion materials, product design, and marketing communications. In particular, Mayor Oh proposed that brands participating in Milan Fashion Week also take part in Seoul Fashion Week. His plan is to create an opportunity for leading Milanese brands to directly participate in Seoul Fashion Week, thereby elevating Seoul Fashion Week to the status of one of the world’s top five global fashion weeks.
Seoul City announced that, based on this agreement, it intends to accelerate the entry of the K-beauty industry into the European market. As of 2024, Korea has become the world’s third-largest cosmetics exporter (USD 10.2 billion), but Europe still remains outside the top ten major export destinations.
In response, Seoul City is pursuing various support measures to upgrade the K-beauty and fashion industries from simple consumer goods to cultural content that grows together with K-culture. These measures include ▲ exploring overseas markets ▲ supporting global marketing ▲ nurturing talent ▲ advancing into international fashion weeks, among others. The city is also preparing plans to revive Dongdaemun as Korea’s fashion and beauty mecca. First, the city aims to transform the DDP area from a simple visit-type space into a stay-and-enjoy consumption space by integrating diverse content, such as beauty, fashion, and K-culture. It plans to expand the brand value generated from citizen-participatory festivals to nearby commercial districts, developing the area into a complex consumption hub where fashion and culture coexist.
At a meeting with local business leaders in Milan that evening, Mayor Oh stated, "We will continue to support Seoul’s brands so that they can appear more frequently on the global stage," and added, "I firmly believe that if Seoul succeeds, Korean companies will be able to expand even further, and I will be a strong pillar of support for them."
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