Seoul Fashion Week rethinks sustainability, latest tech

Sustainability is back in the limelight as the spring-summer 2025 Seoul Fashion Week kicks off its five-day run Tuesday at Dongdaemun Design Plaza in Seoul, addressing the urgent concern shared by the fashion industry.

One of the 21 brands showcasing their collections on the runway is Julycolumn led by Park So-young. The 41-year-old designer, who opened the previous fall-winter 2024 show in February, will feature pieces that use materials created using recycled plastic bottles.

The materials come from Jeju Samdasoo, a bottled-water brand backed by Jeju City that is one of the six companies and groups that have partnered with the show organizer Seoul City to promote sustainable fashion.

Next up is Im Seon-oc, also a womenswear designer, who is best known for her use of neoprene for her brand, Partsparts. Im will this time put on an additional separate exhibition at DDP dedicated to achieving what she calls “zero waste.”

In an outreach to a larger public, the brand will have people come in and piece together a canvas tote bag of their own out of Partsparts fabric scraps for two days starting Friday. Those who have booked spots at the brand’s official Instagram will be able to participate in the side event.

The commitment to sustainability won’t stop at showing fashion creations. On Wednesday, officials from Hyosung TNC, a local producer of eco-friendly materials, will hold a gathering to promote its latest textile product “Regen,” made from ocean and plastic wastes, according to the company. Some of the 120 buyers expected to attend the five-day fashion week and industry watchers will be joining the meeting, people with knowledge of the matter said.

Concerns other than sustainability will be on the runway.

For the first time in the fashion week’s history since 2000, the biannual event will put on a collaboration between a fashion brand and an electronics maker that could prove to be a commercial success in years to come.

The designer behind this project is Lee Chung-chung, a womenswear designer and founder of LIE, whose runway will mark the finale on Saturday. Lee’s models will walk down the runway wearing stretchable display panels -- displays that can be stretched, folded and crumpled.

“‘Neo-Craftsmanship’ is the theme this year,” Lee told The Korea Herald. “The so-called stretchable panels will be a new way to express oneself and defining the kind of craftsmanship that embraces fresh additions to fashion is where I’m going with the spring-summer collection,” he added.

Lee -- a designer known for tying fashion to something else seemingly unrelated -- jointly pursued the latest project with LG Display in a government-funded push for securing “core technologies” with industry-wide applications. Stretchable panels for firefighters and the military have long been floated.

K-pop band NewJeans, the ambassadors for Seoul Fashion Week this season, will make an appearance Tuesday morning.