Samsung C&T’s Juun. J debuts at menswear trade fair Pitti Uomo

Samsung C&T’s Juun. J debuts at menswear trade fair Pitti Uomo. January. 15, 2016 09:38. baek@donga.com.

The audience rose for a round of standing ovation as male models walked onto the catwalk in mustangs with the patterns of dinosaurs and robots. On Wednesday, "Juun.J," the male fashion brand that Samsung C&T is fostering into a global designer’s clothing line, staged a guest designer fashion show for Pitti Uomo, the largest men’s clothing exhibition in the world held in Firenze, Italy, which is unprecedented for a Korean fashion brand.

Marking the 89th opening this year, Pitti Uomo is the single largest biannual fashion show for male clothing in the world, which has been held in January and June every year since 1972. Tradition has it that the operation committee of the show picks a male clothing brand every year as a guest designer, and Juun.J was invited this year. While there were some Korean fashion companies that opened a booth for the exhibition, it is the first for a Korean brand to be invited as a guest designer.

For the fashion show, Juun.J presented unconventional works under the theme of "less." Having dismantled the existing trend to create a new drive out of it, the Korean high-end fashion brand proposed to blur the line between men and women. The brand added illustrations to its mustangs in collaboration with a Japanese illustrator named Sorayama Hajime. “We gave a new interpretation to our rider jackets and mustangs with an emphasis on the transition of classic,” said Jeong Wook-jun, a senior director at Samsung C&T.

Lee Seo-hyun, the president of Samsung C&T`s fashion group, watched the show on Wednesday along with some 700 buyers from high-end department stores and professionals of fashion industry around the world. “I think we have taken a meaningful step forward to the global market as a Korean fashion brand. We will strive further to expand global revenues,” said Lee. Having joined the fashion group of Samsung C&T in 2012, Juun.J is running two stores in Korea (main branch of Lotte Department Store and Galleria Luxury Hall) and 100 stores abroad. The brand is aiming at reaching 100 billion won (82.37 million U.S. dollars) in global sales by 2020.