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| A preview of the digital runway show Concept Korea at the New York Fashion Week F/W 2021 / Courtesy of KOCCA |
By Park Han-sol
Boy bands TXT's Yeonjun and WayV's YangYang will walk in the digital runway show Concept Korea F/W 2021, part of the official program for New York Fashion Week (NYFW), showing creations by Korean designers hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Amid the coronavirus pandemic, which has made it difficult for Korean fashion designers to break into the international market, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Creative Content Agency (KOCCA) announced Tuesday that they will offer them support this year through a digital runway and showroom.
Concept Korea at NYFW, a government-sponsored fashion show aimed at promoting Korea's promising designers globally since 2010, will launch the digital runway, Feb. 17.
Three brands ― Shin Hye-young's WNDERKAMMER, Lee Seong-dong's UL:KIN and Lee Ji-yeon's JARRET ― which successfully made their debuts at NYFW last season, will participate in the show.
For UL:KIN, K-pop star TXT's Yeonjun and musician BIBI will walk the runway, with BIBI releasing a new track for the show.
The fashion brand JARRET will collaborate with WayV's YangYang in an effort to promote its collection through a mix of K-pop and K-fashion.
Instead of utilizing a typical catwalk, WNDERKAMMER will showcase a cinematic runway video.
"Unlike the offline shows, the digital runway has another advantage as it allows fashion designers to exercise their imagination as creators to direct the season's concept without spatial limits," the three participating designers said.
"We look forward to promoting our brands to industry officials and people around the world amid these trying times."
The Concept Korea runway show will be released online at 10:30 a.m. Feb. 17 at the official website for NYFW, and will also be available for view at KOCCA's YouTube channel starting Feb. 18.
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| The three participating designers for Concept Korea ― from left, Lee Seong-dong, Shin Hye-young and Lee Ji-yeon / Courtesy of KOCCA |
Meanwhile, KOCCA has also launched an F/W season sales campaign online, Feb. 15, through the global fashion showroom The Selects, in time for the New York and Paris Fashion weeks.
Nine brands ― EENK, WNDERKAMMER, EYEYE, HANKIM, VERSO, YOUSER, C-ZANNE E, The Studio K and NEUL ― will take part in the campaign, gearing up for fashion markets in New York and Paris.
"There has been a paradigm shift in the fashion industry as a result of accelerated digitization after COVID-19," said Lee Hyeon-ju, who oversees popular culture operations at KOCCA. "Amid these changes, our agency will continue to support domestic designer brands breaking into overseas markets, through digital runways and showrooms."
