On May 24, a clothing store in Tokyo’s Shibuya district was crowded with young Japanese customers eagerly waiting in line before the store opened. This event marked the launch of the first pop-up store for the Korean fashion brand Matin Kim in Japan, organized by Japanese retail group Parco in collaboration with Hyundai Department Store. The event attracted more than 3,000 visitors, setting a record for the highest attendance at a Korean fashion pop-up store in the country. Over the next two months, pop-up stores featuring Matin Kim and 10 other K-fashion brands generated sales of 3.3 billion won (approximately $2.8 million).
The growing popularity of Korean fashion among young Japanese consumers has led to a surge of K-fashion platforms entering Japan’s online and offline markets. Last October, the Korean women’s fashion shopping mall ABLY launched a service allowing vendors to expand into Japan. By selecting the “Overseas Sales Integration” option in the ABLY app, vendors can list products on ABLY’s Japanese platform, amood, enabling direct sales and shipping to Japanese customers. ABLY handles translation, international shipping, customs clearance, and customer support.
As of Aug. 22, nearly 10 months after amood’s launch, ABLY reported that more than 5,500 stores have expanded into Japan through the platform, registering a cumulative 1.85 million fashion and beauty products. Amood’s monthly active users increased by 20% from the previous month, while transaction volume grew by 30%.
The entry of K-fashion platforms into Japan has intensified since the 2020s. The fashion platform Mediquitous launched NUGU in Japan in 2020, and it has since established a strong presence, with last year’s transaction volume reaching 46 billion won. NUGU’s monthly active users now stands at 1.8 million. Meanwhile, Musinsa, another leading Korean fashion platform, established its Japanese subsidiary, Musinsa Japan, in 2021, operating both pop-up stores and an online shopping mall. A Musinsa representative stated, “Japan accounts for about 40% of our business, and it serves as a strategic base for further expansion into other markets.”
Japan, a major fashion powerhouse, boasts an estimated market size of 100 trillion won—double that of South Korea. During Japan’s economic boom in the 1980s, prominent designers emerged, bringing Japanese fashion to global prominence and influencing trends in South Korea. By the early 2000s, “J-Flow” and “Nippon Style” became popular in the Korean fashion scene.
Korean fashion had a brief surge in popularity in Japan in the early 2000s, with clothing from Seoul’s Dongdaemun Market drawing interest from young Japanese consumers. However, interest waned as the K-content wave, including Korean dramas, gradually subsided.
In contrast, the recent resurgence of K-fashion in Japan is attributed to growing interest in Korean celebrities’ fashion and the widespread use of IT devices. Korean fashion trends are spreading rapidly through social media among trend-sensitive young Japanese consumers, driven by an increase in K-fashion content. A recent Nikkei article noted, “Korean products and services are hitting it big in Japan. In a country where social media is widely used, products that survive consumer scrutiny, amplified by K-pop stars, are gaining global traction. In Japan, youth engaged in ‘oshi-katsu’ (supporting their favorite idols) are driving this trend.”
