Taiwanese fashionistas find inspiration at Seoul Fashion Week

Life & Style

Published: 26 Feb. 2024, 14:21 Updated: 26 Feb. 2024, 19:22

Taiwanese fashionistas find inspiration at Seoul Fashion Week

Runway looks from Ajobyajo's 2024 Fall/Winter collection during Seoul Fashion Week in February [AJOBYAJO]

Seoul Fashion Week sees visitors from all over the world in every season, whether they be fashion lovers flaunting their style or buyers eagerly purchasing from Korean designers. In the recently-ended 2024 Fall/Winter (F/W) show, one region in particular stood out as an avid fan of Korean couture: Taiwan.

“There have been numerous times when K-fashion would suddenly become super popular in Taiwan,” Su Tsen-Hung, 35, told the Korea JoongAng Daily in an interview during Seoul Fashion Week at the Dongdaemun Design Plaza in central Seoul earlier this month. Su is the CEO of Nihow and N.Core, which are clothing boutiques in Taiwan that focus solely on Korean brands, and had visited as a buyer.

Seoul Fashion Week kicks off with two locations and even more programs

Overcoats were one example of a sensation that changed the fashion paradigm in Taiwan, largely due to the SBS rom-com fantasy television series “My Love from the Star” (2013-14), which starred Kim Soo-hyun and Jun Ji-hyun.

Not only was the show itself a hit, the original soundtrack, food and fashion from the series gained recognition all over the globe, and Taiwan was no exception.

Actors Park Hae-jin, left, and Kim Soo-hyun wear overcoats in the SBS rom-com series "My Love from the Star" (2013-14), sparking a huge trend in Taiwan. [SCREEN CAPTURE]

“Every girlfriend or wife would get their boyfriend or husband to try on overcoats after seeing Kim Soo-hyun wear it in the show,” Su said. “Sales for longer-length coats increased significantly. Prior to that, you would rarely see overcoats in the streets, but that show completely changed the style of Taiwanese people.”

For over a decade now, Su has been referring to the Korean fashion market for both Nihow and N.Core. Both boutiques import directly from Korea, but Nihow consists more of the brandless, wholesale clothes typically from Dongdaemun Market, while N.Core specializes in licensed labels like Andersson Bell, Nerdy, Kirsh, Ajobyajo, Mahagrid and Covernat.

Currently, Nihow and N.Core each have two stores in Taiwan, including the downtown East District of Taipei. Unlike Korea, sales at brick-and-mortar stores in Taiwan are higher, and Nihow and N.Core altogether boasted an average of $300,000 in sales per month in 2023 — a fivefold increase from 2021.

Both boutiques also operate online.

Nihow has also worked with the Korean government, like for the store's 10th anniversary back in 2021 when it partook in the K-fashion Digital Festival organized by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Creative Content Agency. The event was filled with fashion shows by Korean designer labels like LIE and tibaeg.

A Nihow store in Taiwan [NIHOW]

An N.Core store in Taiwan [N.CORE]

“Since Taiwan’s fashion industry is smaller in scale than Korea's, I always visit Korea during Seoul Fashion Week to see what the system is,” Su said, citing Musinsa Studio as one business example he would like to benchmark. Musinsa Studio is an office sharing space for fashion industry workers, launched by the fashion e-commerce giant. There are five branches across Seoul.

Su wasn’t the only Taiwanese industry insider that paid a visit to Seoul Fashion Week for inspiration. Tsai Yi-Ting and Hsiao Huifun, both from the Department of Cultural Affairs under the Taipei City Government, also plan on finding ways for Taipei Fashion Week to collaborate with Seoul Fashion Week in the future.

Like Seoul Fashion Week, which is hosted and organized by the Seoul Metropolitan Government, the city government of Taipei also participates in managing its own Taipei Fashion Week.

Though specific details were not given regarding these future plans, Taipei Fashion Week may incorporate pop-up stores and interactive programs at the site to garner more visitors, similar to Seoul Fashion Week, Tsai told the Korea JoongAng Daily.

“There’s no question that Taiwanese people are interested in K-fashion,” she said. “We’re also interested in sharing what Taiwanese fashion is with Koreans and actively exchanging fashion-related ideas between the two countries.”

Gentle Monster, Osoi, Covernat, Codegraphy and Ajobyajo were a few of the Korean brands mentioned during the interviews that are popular among young Taiwanese people. Sara Huang, a project integration director at Vogue Taiwan who also visited Seoul Fashion Week, praised Ajobyajo’s latest show, which was inspired by the works of famed Taiwanese photographer Chang Chien-Chi.

A runway look from Ajobyajo's 2024 Fall/Winter collection [AJOBYAJO]

Chang is a member of the international photographic cooperative Magnum Photos and is known for “The Chain,” a collection of portraits that he took in a sanitarium, which was later exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 2001 and the Sao Paulo Art Biennale in 2002.

“The Chain” was also an inspiration for Ajobyajo’s 2024 F/W collection, which “garnered a ton of media coverage in Taiwan,” Huang said, because, “Chang has won awards from the Taiwanese government and is considered a very reputable artist.”

While Su came to Korea to find fresh ideas for his ongoing business, Nihow-exclusive pants are one type of product that he has already modeled after Korean styles. Su designed them himself specifically to fit Taiwanese body types.

Su Tsen-Hung, the CEO of Nihow and N.Core clothing boutiques in Taiwan that focus on only Korean brands, visits Seoul Fashion Week as a buyer. [SHIN MIN-HEE]

“Taiwanese, Japanese and Korean people all have different heights and body shapes, especially in the lower body,” he said. “Taiwanese people tend to have larger bottoms. Japanese people are shorter, and Korean people are taller. I wanted to reinterpret the Korean look so they would be more size-appropriate for Taiwanese customers.”

One thing Su is concerned about, from a business perspective, is that there might not be as much of a synergy between K-fashion and K-content as many may think.

“More and more K-pop idols are becoming ambassadors for fashion labels that are European or American, like Dior or Chanel,” Su said. “The clothes and accessories the Korean celebrities wear may become a hit instantly, but most of the time they’re not from Korean designer brands. As a fan of K-fashion myself, I find this a shame and hope that the world can discover how versatile and high-quality Korean labels are.”

BY SHIN MIN-HEE [shin.minhee@joongang.co.kr]