Seoul Fashion Week kicked off Tuesday at Dongdaemun Design Plaza, where 30 Korean designers are presenting 2023 spring-summer collections through Saturday. The country’s largest fashion show is making a full-scale return to in-person shows as most COVID-19-related social distancing rules have been lifted.

Twenty-three established designers and seven rookie designers with less than seven years of business experience are participating in the biannual fashion week.

The five-day fashion week got underway with designer Park Choon-moo’s runway show for Demoo Parkchoonmoo, a collection which featured Korean aesthetics inspired by hanbok, traditional Korean attire.

Black, white and blue dominated the runway in swinging silhouettes reminiscent of traditional Korean attire but that were decidedly modern in their interpretation.

Songzio, launched by designer Zio Song in 1993, took its show outdoors. A performance by Hook, a female dance crew from Mnet's dance survival show "Street Woman Fighter," got things started at Songzio. The brand’s 2023 spring-summer collection took the theme of “eclipse,” reinterpreting the orderly chaos portrayed in Dante’s “Divine Comedy.”

The show was a repeat of its collection shown at Paris Fashion Week in June at the American Cathedral in Paris, with a couple of new looks thrown in.

Greedilous and Holy Number 7 also showcased their collections on the first day of Seoul Fashion Week. Greedilous’s Park Youn-hee collaborated with Kakao Webtoon’s virtual character Jung Hi for the show.

Five to eight fashion houses will stage shows daily through Saturday. Lie Sang Bong is the sole brand showing out of DDP, turning the main street of Insa-dong into a runway at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday.

The Seoul Metropolitan Government, which organizes Seoul Fashion Week, is running “QR Stores” at DDP and Gwanghwamun Square. Five brands have set up stores at Gwanghwamun Square and 37 brands at DDP, where purchases can be made at discounted prices using QR codes.

A hybrid trade show is taking place alongside the runway shows. A total of 86 Korean designer brands will show their collections at 67 separate booths and four joint booths set up inside a 2,992-square-meter hall at DDP.

By Park Yuna (yunapark@heraldcorp.com)