K-Culture is not a foreign concept to Southeast Asia. Some locals live and breathe K-Pop, while some swear by K-Fashion. K-cuisine, and/or K-beauty. Hallyu’s soft-power domination has, after all, resulted in a meteoric rise of its exports, especially in its entertainment department. Korean stars are now household names, and have even made their individual forays into the previously Western-flooded field of fashion. Just take Paris Fashion Week as an instance. South Korean celebrities like ATEEZ’s Hongjoong, Aespa’s Giselle and Seventeen’s Joshua sat in the front rows of shows like Balmain, Ottolinger and Marni respectively — fuelling rumours of potential ambassadorships and employing each of their illustrious fanbases to generate traction for the houses that extended invites.

On a fashion front, the metropolis of Seoul, the nation’s capital, has surfaced as one of luxury’s top picks for Asia presentations. The city has played host to an edition of Prada Mode, Gucci’s Cruise 2024, and has boasted its own Fashion Week since 1987. More and more Korean designers are, too, earning international prominence. The list is ample: Gentle Monster; Ader Error, We11done, Kimhekim, Juun.J, and Wooyoungmi are just some of the South Korean labels that have broke through to reach global recognition. Newer labels like Hyein Seo, Post Archive Faction and Andersson Bell have quickly developed cult followings too.

And the organisers behind Runway To Seoul seems to be entirely aware of South Korea’s snowballing alliance with fashion. The city’s Dongdaemun Plaza was reenvisoned to host a jam-packed schedule to boast Korea’s entertainment and fashion prowess. Burgeoning, homegrown labels — L.e.e.y., Oridnarypeople. Niche, Niche2Night, Kowgi and Mina Chung — showed at the event, in tandem with musical guest performances from Kiss of Life, Kimximyada, DJ250 and more. 8 by Yoox, the in-house label of the Net-A-Porter e-commerce platform, also added to the day-long experience with its FW23 collection. And true to the nation’s renown for innovation and futurism, AR/XR interactive experiences complemented the intricate and modernist collections that showed on the runway.

And when fashion, music, technology and entertainment converge, there are bound to be eyeballs. In attendance were South Korean prolifics. Rappers Swings and Vape joined acts like Cherry Bullet, Nana Youngroung Kim, Ji Il-joo and Nature to grace the show. Grand expansion plans into the major fashion meccas of New York, Paris and Milan are in the works too. If September’s first Runway To Seoul was a taste of what is to come, believe us when we say our appetites have been whet.