Fashion Week for those in their 20s and 30s?

Seo Jeong-min
The author is a senior reporter of culture at the JoongAng Ilbo.

Seoul Fashion Week 2024 Fall/Winter kicked off on Thursday. Korea’s largest fashion event, held twice a year, showcases upcoming fashion trends. The Seoul Metropolitan Government, which organizes the show, has the goal to make it the fifth largest fashion event after the world’s four major fashion weeks in New York, Paris, Milan and London.

The city organized a trade show space for 68 apparel, footwear, bag and jewelry brands and invited 101 international buyers from 23 countries, including global department store chain Harvey Nichols, to arrange one-on-one sales consultations. It also selected K-pop girl group NewJeans as an ambassador to attract the attention of young people. Some of the shows, previously held at Seoul’s Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP) every year, will also be held at the Seongsu-dong multicultural space SFactory in order to channel the lively mood of the young people’s mecca.

Industry insiders, however, found the list of shows surprising. Many fashion brands andveteran designers — such as Caruso by Chang Kwang-hyo, Lie Sang Bong, Gee Chun-hee and Big Park by Park Yoon-soo, which have held shows every year at Seoul Fashion Week — were nowhere to be seen. Instead, more than half of the featured designers were new brands with unfamiliar names. As it turns out, the judging criteria for joining the shows has changed. One major change was that overseas sales performance took 20 percent of the total score this year compared to last season’s 10 percent. “This is to ensure that Seoul Fashion Week will become a global business platform,” a Seoul city official said.

When a designer presents a show at Seoul Fashion Week, the city gives them money for the venue, which costs over 100 million won ($75,273), as well as lighting and audio systems and publicity. Although some senior designers have declined to participate for personal reasons, the city’s intention was to promote young designers who focus on street fashion — favored by youth around the world — by adding qualitative evaluation to quantitative evaluation. The elder generation of designers, who invested massive money to enter the Paris and New York markets without any government support when they were young, must have been upset.

The idea of fostering new talent is agreeable, but I wonder if Seoul Fashion Week, organized by the city, is only meant to promote business. Korea’s leading fashion platform should be a festival of all generations, rather than targeting just one. Comfortable and unique street fashion is important, but we also need tailored suits with great fits and silhouettes.

“It is difficult to create a healthy fashion market with items only for people in their 20s and 30s,” said designer Lie Sang Bong. “We must not ignore the history of high fashion brands that have been competing with European luxurious brands.”

“A tree without roots is very easy to shake,” said designer Jin Teok. “If you go after short-term gains by catering only young people’s tastes, the existence of Seoul Fashion Week could be jeopardized.”

“If it is a government-backed program, it should have a long-term vision and clear direction, but we always follow short-term goals that satisfy key public servants of the city,” said a fashion industry insider. “It is a shame that Seoul Fashion Week is being reduced to a create support platform for emerging designers.”

It has been a long time since celebrity designers with outstanding careers were unenthusiastic about Seoul Fashion Week. They’ve said it’s because they can’t agree with the practice of evenly distributing funds without meticulous studies because of public servants’ tendency to avoid risk. They also complain that Seoul Fashion Week favors rookies, so they do not know what its role is.

In order to globalize Korea’s fashion industry, it is necessary to showcase the design capabilities of various segments, from high fashion to street fashion, in line with global fashion week standards. During Milan Fashion Week, people go to the show of 90-year-old Giorgio Armani not because he made a lot of money last year, but because he is a living legend of Italian fashion. Tradition and history are priceless.