Life and Seoul
Leathergoods start-ups from Seoul caught the eye at the September edition of Mipel in Milan. Six of them travelled to Italy for the occasion, but the South Korean capital is home to thousands more.
Anew feature at the 126th edition of Mipel in Milan in September was a section given over to the Seoul Leather Manufacturer Support Center. The centre is an incubator facility run by the authorities in the South Korean capital to help start-up companies attain success. There are currently 300 small manufacturers operating at the site, but the director, Hong Chang Uk, insists there are around 3,000 manufacturers making bags and other accessories in the city, with a further 300 start-up companies making high-end shoes.
Mr Hong’s role begins with the selection of start-ups that he thinks will benefit from becoming part of the community at the centre. There, they have access to education and training resources to learn more about leather and techniques for turning it into beautiful products. There is also machinery they can share for cutting, stitching and finishing the things they make, and a professional photography studio to help brands showcase their collections, all supported by the city. According to Mr Hong, South Korea is home to high levels of artisan skills, including a deep understanding of materials and of manufacturing processes.
Export challenge
The domestic market is strong in South Korea, Mr Hong explains. The country’s economy is the fourth-largest in Asia and the fourteenth biggest in the world. In its most recent forecast at the start of the third quarter of 2024, the International Monetary Fund foresaw full-year growth of 2.5% for South Korea in 2024. The centre has already carried out a number of projects on home soil, promoting the facility and the brands that work there to consumers in Seoul and other parts of the country.
“But South Korea is a relatively expensive place to produce,” the centre’s director continues, “certainly in comparison to some of our neighbours.” This makes export growth a challenge, especially in the east Asia region. For this reason, the Leather Manufacturer Support Center has begun to look further afield for export clients, including in Europe.
For the Mipel project, the centre invited six of the companies to prepare collections of products to put on display in Milan as examples of what the Seoul start-ups are capable of. Mr Hong makes it clear, though, that the trip to Italy was part of a wider initiative to boost export sales for all the companies that make up the collective.
For illustrative purposes, one of the brands, l’Homme Vide, had a shoulder bag on show, a model called Louise, that is available at a wholesale price of $110 each, with a minimum order quantity of 50. The bag is 38x24 centimetres and is available in six colours. Founder of the brand and designer of the bag, Jang Hyuk, describes the Louise bag as “simple but cool”. He especially likes the way the curves work.
The appeal of tradition
Start-ups that made their way to Milan also included Pyogo Studio, which only launched in the summer of 2023. Its approach is to try to combine leather artisanship with the look and the heritage of hanbok, the traditional dress of the Korean peninsula. A product in which this combination comes across clearly is one called Lucky Bag.
In seeking to “show the aesthetic of Korea” through fashionable leathergoods, Pyogo has given the Lucky Bag the billowy, full-volume appearance of hanbok skirts. The bags are small at 21x19 centimetres, but they are cinched at the top by a drawstring mechanism, in a manner reminiscent of securing a garment at the waist of the wearer, and balloon out towards the bottom.
Two leather colours were on show in Milan: black and ivory.
The beauty of blemishes
Back at l’Homme Vide, Jang Hyuk is another who says he seeks to reinterpret the classical while staying faithful to tradition. He has been translating this into the brand’s tote bags, briefcases and attractive, slimline document holders for five years now. He uses one of the briefcases himself, one that has vegetable-tanned leather in a pale golden colour, combined with waxed cotton canvas. The base and the flap are leather; the rest of the body of the bag is canvas.
Mr Hyuk explains that he loves the fact that scratches and other marks on the leather he chooses to use are so visible. He is referring to scrapes that were in evidence on the raw hide before the tanning process began, but also to blemishes that have come as a result of wear and tear, of which there is plenty in a metropolitan area of more than 25 million people. He says strangers among the millions have stopped him in the street to admire the bag, a model that, in spite of all the marks, he calls Healing.
According to Mr Hyuk, the accumulation of marks is a good thing. “The scratches are a testament to how long this bag has lasted and how much use it has given me so far,” he says.
Six brands from the Seoul Leather Manufacturer Support Center travelled to Milan in September to take part in Mipel. The aim was to carve out new export business for the 300 leathergoods manufacturers who share the centre’s resources. Credit: Mipel
