How Matin Kim Hit ₩100B

The Rise of Korean Fashion Brands

[Intro]

Matin Kim has moved far beyond the Instagram algorithms of women in their 20s and 30s—it has even seeped into Yeouido, Seoul’s finance district. The same middle-aged finance guys who, before and after COVID, were busy studying the subtle difference between “cushion” and “foundation” are now asking a new set of questions: What exactly separates Handsome from so-called “Musinsa brands”?

And honestly, it makes sense. There have been plenty of fashion brands that started online and found success—but there is virtually no precedent for a domestic fashion brand that, roughly eight years after launch, approached ₩100 billion in annual revenue and successfully pursued a sale. Still, if Matin Kim were merely a one-off outlier, those Yeouido guys wouldn’t have downloaded the Musinsa app.

As of 2023, the number of brands on Musinsa alone that surpassed ₩10 billion in annual transaction volume reached 40. Considering that just two or three years ago it was common wisdom that “online fashion brands top out at around ₩10 billion in revenue,” Matin Kim is not a single “incident”—it is part of a broader current. So what is driving the explosive growth of domestic Korean fashion brands?

Matin Kim, which even recently collaborated with ASICS

[A Brief History of Domestic Fashion Brands]

To define what people mean by “Musinsa brands,” including Matin Kim, we first need to look at how the domestic fashion market has evolved. Korean fashion brands have always existed, but their defining characteristics have shifted alongside changes in consumer needs.

① (1995–2006) The rise of “brand consciousness,” led by legacy players

By “legacy brands,” I mean brands under major Korean fashion conglomerates (Samsung C&T, LF, Handsome, etc.) as well as prominent domestic and international designer labels. From the late 1990s through the early 2000s, rising national income and cultural opening helped spread the very idea of fashion as a “brand”. Consumers began buying clothing at department stores or directly operated brand stores and caring explicitly about what brand they were wearing—an especially visible form of “brand-biased” consumption among the middle class and Gen X.

There was a time when E-Land literally put its name on clothes and sold them as a logo

② (2006–2015) The expansion of “value-for-money” apparel with the rise of SPA brands

As the global downturn persisted and large-scale manufacturing infrastructure developed in China, SPA brands such as Uniqlo, Zara, and H&M began to grow rapidly. The logic was simple: if quality is guaranteed above a certain baseline, consumers are willing to make rational purchases at affordable price points without insisting on brand names. Major Korean corporations responded by launching local SPA brands such as 8 Seconds, Spao, and Top Ten in an effort to align with and counter this global trend.

Forever 21, pushed into the back pages of history after the SPA shakeout

③ (2015– ) Online-native domestic brands become mainstream

Today’s consumers often prioritize a brand’s mood and sensibility over its traditional “brand value,” and “emotional value for money” —how satisfying something feels—over simple cost-performance. Fashion-focused e-commerce platforms and social media have become highly effective and widely adopted marketing tools, dramatically increasing access to a wide range of brands. Instead of a small number of top-of-mind brands dominating demand, a broad universe of long-tail brands now satisfies increasingly segmented consumer needs.

There are many terms for these long-tail domestic brands, but in this essay I’ll refer to them collectively as “domestic brands.” These are independent designer brands with fandoms built primarily through online channels. Typically, they plan and design products themselves—reflecting their brand concept and current trends—while outsourcing cutting and sewing to domestic factories. Most start on social media and build a D2C base, then move toward larger distribution channels to maximize revenue and strengthen brand awareness.

Handsome, once known for operating legacy brands, joined the wave by launching a commerce platform

[Why Domestic Brands Have Grown]

① The “leveling up” of apparel quality

One reason consumers can prioritize sensibility and emotional value over name-brand prestige is that apparel quality has become broadly standardized upward. In central Seoul, a so-called “one-stop manufacturing infrastructure” has become densely concentrated. There are said to be more than 20,000 wholesalers for fabrics and materials, and around 30,000 cutting and sewing workshops. In the past, the main customers of this ecosystem were legacy brands and “Soho” players (often referring to Dongdaemun wholesale brands). But as both groups shifted production bases to China, Vietnam, and elsewhere, domestic brands gained access to high-quality production with relatively smaller MOQs (minimum order quantities).

As a result, even brands with limited capital and experience can now produce genuinely solid products. When baseline quality is reasonably assured regardless of brand, consumers feel freer to invest in unfamiliar labels as long as the product matches their personal taste and aesthetic judgment.

A snapshot of a sewing factory in Dongdaemun

② Shorter trend cycles—and the growing importance of “buying at the right moment”

In fashion today, the idea of a “seasonal trend” almost feels outdated. Trends now change literally by the hour. Social media is the engine driving this speed, producing content at an aggressive pace. But content overload also accelerates fatigue. The more explosive a trend is, the shorter its lifecycle tends to be—especially because when content performs well, the logic of social platforms pushes countless near-identical iterations, amplifying the trend and exhausting it faster.

To keep up with these compressed cycles, consumers have come to value timing above all: buying trend-forward items at precisely the right moment. They increasingly prefer products that reflect current trends and communicate individuality—rather than clothing planned and produced according to rigid seasonal calendars.

Domestic brands are often well-positioned for this environment. Most are built to constantly capture online-driven micro-trends and run fast, founder- or key-person-led product planning processes. In a way, this reflects a lack of systematization. Yet in today’s market, scale and rigid systems matter less than spontaneity and flexibility. Brands that can move quickly and adapt fluidly are more likely to win.

This summer, “Brat” and “Demure”—two completely different aesthetics—trended at the same time.

③ High stress from too many choices—and a shift toward “look & feel” decision-making

In the age of information overload, “poverty in abundance” isn’t a problem limited to Netflix. Even if you start shopping with a fairly specific objective—say, “a black V-neck knit”—you can easily spend over an hour wandering through Instagram and W Concept. The market is hyper-segmented. Options are endless. The shade of “black” shifts with the fabric; the depth of the V-neck varies; and once you factor in length, discounts, and reviews, your cart fills up—but clicking “pay” becomes strangely difficult.

In response, consumers increasingly rely not on objectively comparing quantitative information, but on “look & feel.” Instead of focusing on which brand or which product is objectively best, they focus on who is wearing it—a tendency often described in Korea as the “ditto” phenomenon: following the taste of influencers you trust so you can skip the exhausting decision process altogether.

Online-native domestic brands are especially skilled at producing and distributing content that reflects the taste of their target customers. Through social media, they build storytelling around a brand identity and personality, maintaining a coherent concept from design through to sales. Many also engage in active two-way communication with customers, maximizing engagement and loyalty. In an era where consumers are overwhelmed with choice, content differentiation may be a more effective—and more sustainable—way to attract customers than competing purely on price or quality.

Open YY’s Instagram feed: high-sensibility posts that make you want to hit “follow” immediately

[Outro]

Traditionally, fashion has not been a favored sector within the investment world. The key drivers behind fashion brand growth are notoriously difficult to define and evaluate. The psychology that triggers purchase decisions, the criteria by which consumers judge design and product completion, the appropriateness of a distribution channel mix—these are areas where it is hard to quantify, compare, and score with the precision investors typically prefer.

Moreover, brand businesses are not always well captured by short-term financial performance alone. This is also why many domestic brands choose not to enter channels like Musinsa or W Concept, even at the cost of near-term revenue—because they want to minimize brand-image dilution and preserve long-term brand equity.

Even so, it seems likely that fashion deals will increase going forward. That possibility comes with both concern and anticipation—especially around what new, interesting lenses and evaluation frameworks will emerge at the deal-screening stage for fashion brands.