K-fashion buzz builds overseas but lack of gov’t classifications makes growth measurement difficult

Clothes are displayed in a Lotte Department Store located in Jung District, central Seoul, on March 5. [JOONGANG ILBO]

 

Foreign tourists packed a K-fashion floor at a major Seoul department store on Thursday, browsing Korean brands as staff spoke more English and Chinese than Korean — a sign of the rapidly growing global demand for Korean fashion.

 

“About 70 percent of total sales at Kinetic Ground [specialty store for Korean fashion brands] in the second half of last year came from foreign customers,” a Lotte Department Store representative said. “Sales of K-fashion products to foreign customers at the main branch in January to February this year also increased 25 times compared with the same period last year, showing strong interest in K-fashion.” 

 


 

Demand for Korean fashion brands is surging among foreign tourists and overseas consumers. Still, industry sources say the lack of a clear government definition and export classification for “K-fashion” is making it difficult to measure the sector’s growth and develop policy support.

 

Industry players say they have already noticed strong growth in spending by foreign tourists and overseas sales. The number of Korean fashion brands on Amood, a Japanese service app launched by the Korean fashion platform Ably, increased from 7,700 in 2024 to 22,900 as of last month.

 

Musinsa also opened its e-commerce platform Musinsa Global Store in 2022 to target overseas customers. The platform now operates in 13 countries, including Japan and the United States. The company held five pop-up stores in Japan last year, drawing a total of 140,000 visitors, and opened two offline stores in China as it expanded its overseas retail presence.

 

Customers line up outside a Musinsa store in Shanghai, China, on Feb. 20. [MUSINSA]

 

Official statistics, however, do not fully reflect the size of the K-fashion market. Exports in clothing, clothing accessories and fur products, as well as leather, bags and footwear totaled 2.47 trillion won ($1.7 billion) last year, according to trade statistics by industry from the Ministry of Data and Statistics.

 

However, K-fashion exports compiled by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Resources
 and the Ministry of SMEs and Startups totaled 3.92 trillion won.

 

The discrepancy is attributed to limitations in the classification system used by the Trade Ministry. While K-beauty and K-food are grouped as a single industry under the classification system, making it easier to measure exports and growth, K-fashion is spread across sectors such as textiles, clothing, footwear and leather products, making its overall scale harder to track.

 

“Policies applied across the entire industry have supported exports and certification systems for K-beauty and K-food, but K-fashion has grown mainly around individual brands due to the lack of government support,” an industry official said. “To strengthen global competitiveness, the fashion industry needs to be redefined, and support is needed to expand overseas entry and export infrastructure.”

 

Pedestrians walk past a Marithe Francois Girbaud store at Gwangjang Market in Jongno District, central Seoul, on Oct. 1, 2025. [JOONGANG ILBO]

 

“There is agreement on the need to integrate classification systems to accurately measure the size of the K-fashion industry and develop support measures,” Choo Ho-jung, a professor at Seoul National University, said. “However, clear standards are needed to group items such as footwear, clothing and sunglasses into the same industry because their raw materials and manufacturing methods differ.”

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.

BY NOH YU-RIM [[email protected]]