Seoul Fashion Week F/W 2013 in Review

By Jeongeun Grace Park

The venues that Seoul Fashion Week F/W 2013 had chosen seemed inadequate to many attendees compared to last season.
Compared to last season’s Korean War museum, using Blue Square which was built for live musical performances and Korea’s newest shopping mall, IFC mall may have made Seoul city’s effort plausible. However, not only are Blue Square and IFC mall so far from each other but Blue Square was also despicably small to host such top notch designers.

Anyone who had been to SETEC at Hangnyeul must have sensed that the effort of choosing locations for Seoul Fashion Week was ever more lost and out of direction compared to seasons passed and this made people miss SETEC even more.

Many of the important interested parties such as the chairman of Paris Prêt à Porter, MC2’s showroom supervisor, buyers, VIP personnel, the domestic and international media and etc. must have been perplexed as they were served such a complicated and confusing entrée for each show.

The Lie Sang Bong show, one of the most prestigious shows of Seoul’s Fashion Week also suffered from having VIPs walking out of the show just soon after their arrival due to the confusing and unorganized hosting system.

Seoul city has been operating Seoul Fashion Week for a few seasons now since they took over from the Korean Fashion Association. As their budget and manpower suffered cutbacks, Seoul city has not been able to fulfill their grand ambition of making Seoul Fashion Week into one of the world’s top 5 fashion week events. Many Korean designers are facing a huge financial obstacle while they are shooting for a more international fashion week.

Therefore Seoul Fashion Week is one of the greatest opportunities for those designers to set out rather aggressively and make them known in the global market. Even so, Seoul Fashion Week is still struggling with the limited reputation of their potential which is considered nothing more than just another event held by the government. To make things even worse, Beijing Fashion Week which is held during the same time is attracting more and more international buyers since China’s market is growing even faster with increasing caliber.

Considering all the circumstances, how Seoul Fashion Week can make it into the global fashion market and contribute to the fashion trading industry are still the biggest issues to figure out for Seoul city and the people in the fashion industry.

Seoul city is playing a role to help upcoming designers by providing Fashion Creative Studio and etc, but they should also pay attention to holding a Trade show during the fashion week that could promote the designers and in turn they will gain more profitable orders and promotions.