Seoul Fashion Week goes digital

After the COVID-19 pandemic canceled the 2020 fall-winter Seoul Fashion Week earlier this year, the fashion week showcasing the spring-summer 2021 collections will be held next month, reaching out to the global audience on an online platform.

Some 45 South Korean fashion designers are participating in the 2021 SS Seoul Fashion Week -- 35 established designers for the Seoul Collection show and 10 rookie designers for Generation Next.

The fashion shows, scheduled from Oct. 20-25, will be held across Seoul this year, including Dongdaemun Design Plaza, where the fashion show has taken place for the past five years. While the Generation Next shows will take place at DDP as usual, designers taking part in the Seoul Collection show are free to choose their own stages anywhere in Seoul.

The shows will be livestreamed online through the Seoul Fashion Week’s website (http://www.seoulfashionweek.org) and the official YouTube channels of Seoul Fashion Week and DDP.

WeChat, the Chinese-owned messaging app with more than 1.2 billion daily users, and the official website of Nowfashion, a real-time fashion photography magazine, will also stream the shows in real time.

The digital platform will be used to reach a wider range of international viewers and break the conventional paradigm of fashion shows, according to the Seoul Design Foundation, the Seoul Fashion Week organizer.

A noteworthy innovation is “See Now Buy Now” -- a live commerce show that will be streamed at 10 p.m. every day during the fashion week. For the first time, it will allow viewers to purchase the products right after the runway shows. Viewers can ask questions about the items during the shows in live chat rooms.

Seoul Fashion Week has named Gee Choon-hee, a veteran designer and the founder of the Miss Gee Collection, as the honorary designer of the year. Gee has participated in Seoul Fashion Week for the past 20 years.

Generation Next Seoul, which aims to connect brands with foreign buyers, will be held online Oct. 14-21 with a total of 96 local fashion brands participating in the B2B online platform, b2b.tradegns.com.

By Park Yuna (yunapark@heraldcorp.com)