Showcasing Fashion Industry’s Potential

“Preview in Seoul 2010” at COEX shows fashion industry as a great futuristic growth engine

The Preview in Seoul 2010 held its three-day session from Sept. 2-4 at the Indian Hall of COEX in southern Seoul, with 214 textile firms showing off fashion trends for the winter in Korea.
Clothes on display included casual wear by textile firms that have participated in numerous international textile fashion and fabrics shows such as “Premier Vision” and “Tex World,” demonstrating their high-tech textile materials and fashion products, stressing high-functionality and environmentally friendly trends in a multifunctional way.
Fashion designers thought that red would be a dominant color in the coming winter, while green and blue were likely to sway the fashion scene in the fall and winter of 2010. Those colors set the tone of the fashion exhibition in Seoul.
In the area of textile fabrics, environmental friendliness, well-being, high-functionality and recycling were stressed, as the makers expected long before the event that those elements would play a major role with the concept of “environmentally-friendly new green-textile fabrics.”
Such leading textile makers as Young Textile, Vision Land and Kayjun showed off fabrics made with organic farm produce, corn starch resources and recycled polyester from PET bottles and fishnet nylon at the fashion show.
Dongil Textile came up with a fabric that generates heat, making it pleasant to the wearer, while Ben Tex put on display a fabric that maintains a 4-degree-centigrade temperature at all times and a fabric that can dry instantly called nano-dry fabric, among others.
Ahwa Textile brought to the show its fabric that can absorb viruses, block ultraviolet rays and prevent atopy skin disease, among its various functions. Mt. Jiri Paper introduced Korean traditional rice paper that generates ultraviolet rays, has anti-bacterial properties and soaks up water. They also displayed clothes made with Korean rice papers and diversified interior products at the event.
Clothes for bicycle riders, shoes, helmets and eyeglasses were also displayed at the show at a special booth for such products in line with the government policy to encourage the use of bicycles as a means of city transportation. The special display hall featured the process of design to make products for bicycle riders using very creative advanced designing technologies so that the products would fit nicely with human bodies and would thus help bicycle riders freely use their bodies while riding.
On the sidelines of the fashion show, various events also took place such as seminars and the exchange of business information and fashion materials, in addition to a buyer’s tour related to the East Gate Fashion Festival (Sept. 2-4) in a bid to maximize the results of the main event.
Since its initial opening in 2000, the Preview in Seoul has been growing as a professional international show for textile companies with the number of foreign textile buyers attending the event rising every year. This year, some 1,300 foreign buyers attended the event and conducted sales negotiations for various textile products worth $1.5 billion compared to $1.4 billion for last year, of which actual sales totaled $500 million this year as compared to $423 million worth of contracts concluded last year.
Prime Minister Han Seung-soo, in his speech at the opening ceremony of the event, said the textile industry has become a green growth industry that can be turned into a high value-added one through the further development of design technology. He called for strengthening the industry’s global competitiveness to further upgrade the status of the textile industry in Korea.
Included among the 150 dignitaries at the event’s opening were Minister Lee Youn-ho of the Ministry of Knowledge Economy; Rep. Chung Jang-sun, chairman of the Knowledge Economy Committee of the National Assembly; Vice Minister Lim Chae-min of the Ministry of Knowledge Economy; and Noh Hee-chan, chairman of the Korea Textile Industries Federation, among others. The opening ceremony took place at the Indian Hall on the ground floor of COEX at 11 a.m., Sept. 2. nw

A model showing off a new dress at the Preview in Seoul 2010 held at Coex, southern Seoul Sept. 2-4.

Lucky Dozen Fashion Firms

Fashion globalization as future growth engine

The Ministry of Knowledge Economy has selected 12 fashion firms to be intensely developed under a government plan to nurture the fashion industry in Korea until 2015 under its Global Fashion Leading Brand program. The ministry chose the firms from among 24 firms that applied for the selection through the PFIN, a consortium of fashion business firms that was launched to oversee the program for the MKE.
The ministry looked at each applicant’s ability to explore overseas markets, its brand power, financial health and the capacity to keep up with global standards, as well as management’s intention to pursue the globalization of their operations. Officials in charge at the ministry went through the papers and presentations of those firms to finally pick the successful candidates. Of the 12 firms on the selection list, nine are retailers, one a wholesaler, one a designer and one a licensing-type firm.
Each of the 12 firms on the list will have to go through a check-up on their potential as a commercial firm and, based on the results, they will be recommended to plan their global strategies, given consulting and guidance to upgrade their designing manpower, consulting on the market regions that they would like to advance to in the world and support for training overseas manpower.
The PFIN consortium is given the responsibility to check each firm’s progress toward its globalization plan and, based on the progress, each firm will be given support for the launching of its brand overseas and the design of new products. They will also be given support in such areas as overseas collection and building the SCM (design, planning, production and marketing) systems. nw