Seoul Fashion Week Marks 25 Years by Leaving the Venue Behind

Seoul Fashion Week celebrated its 25th anniversary edition from 1 to 7 September, and the Seoul Metropolitan Government marked the milestone by pushing the event beyond its usual home.

Alongside its main base at the Dongdaemun Design Plaza, this season's shows spilled out onto Seoul landmarks including the historic Deoksugung-gil, Hongje Yuyeon and Heungcheonsa Temple - a literal expansion of the runway into the city itself.

The anniversary edition featured collection shows from 27 local designers and B2B sales sessions with more than 90 brands, alongside what organisers described as multi-layered content spanning global networking and AI-based technology demonstrations - a combination meant to showcase both the present and future of Korean fashion in a single week.

The season's standout new addition was the first-ever participation of the Berlin Showroom, the official showroom of Berlin Fashion Week, which brought 12 rising European brands to Seoul to unveil their collections in Korea for the first time, hosted at the MCM Seoul Flagship Store in Gangnam. The Seoul Metropolitan Government framed the collaboration as a significant opportunity to diversify Korean fashion content and expand the city's global network - a two-way exchange rather than Seoul simply exporting K-fashion outward. The anniversary was further marked with a dedicated SFW Party at EQL in Seongsu-dong, bringing together designers, buyers, media and influencers for a night of pure networking.

For a fashion week that launched in 2000 explicitly to promote Korean fashion internationally, a 25th anniversary built around literally sending its runways out into the city - and inviting Berlin's own showroom in to meet it - reads as a fitting way to mark how far that original ambition has actually travelled.