Seoul Fashion Week returns September 1 through 6 with two different hubs: designer shows and fashion business at Dongdaemun Design Plaza, then outdoor runways, shopping, and K-pop programming around Lotte World Tower. The city says major shows will stream worldwide on the event’s official YouTube channel.
Why a 2027 S/S collection is showing in 2026
The name is not a typo. Fashion weeks present collections before stores and customers encounter them. Here, designers are showing work intended for spring/summer 2027 in September 2026, giving buyers, press, and retailers time to plan. Seoul has used the same one-season-ahead convention in previous official announcements.
That distinction matters in search results. “Seoul Fashion Week 2026” identifies the calendar year; “2027 S/S Seoul Fashion Week” is the official season label. Both refer to the same September event.
DDP and Lotte World Tower are doing different jobs
DDP is in Dongdaemun; Lotte World Tower and Lotte World Mall are in Jamsil. The city positions DDP as the designer and business center and Lotte’s World Park as the public-facing outdoor stage. Do not plan to walk between them or count on the BMW shuttle: Seoul says it supports buyers and press.
| Hub | Confirmed program | What that means |
|---|---|---|
| DDP | 17 designer runway brands; 8 presentations; 97-brand trade show | The collection and fashion-business core, including the opening show by RE RHEE. The trade show runs September 2–4 and is a buyer-facing business program. |
| Lotte World Tower / World Park | KIMHĒKIM, GREEDILOUS, Dunst, and a joint General Idea–EBM–Mahagrid runway, plus NCT and adidas programming | Outdoor runway activity tied to pop-ups, K-culture, and QR-enabled product discovery and shopping. |
The numbers describe different layers of the event. The city’s August 27 update says 31 brands take part across fashion shows and presentations. Visit Seoul separately lists 21 fashion shows, 8 presentations, and 97 trade-show brands. The 97 should not be added to 31 as though all 128 are runway participants.
Why KIMHĒKIM, NCT, and adidas are the headline hooks
KIMHĒKIM comes home for a 10th-anniversary runway
Designer Kim In-tae’s KIMHĒKIM will mark its 10th anniversary with SEOUL LIGHT. Seoul calls this the label’s first domestic fashion-week runway after building recognition abroad, including at Paris Fashion Week. A related archive pop-up is planned for the third floor of Lotte Department Store’s Jamsil Avenuel.
NCT’s anniversary is being told through clothing
The September 6 finale is an NCT 10th-anniversary “curated runway” that reworks performance outfits and personal items from the group’s past decade into a runway format. A separate activity-outfit exhibition runs September 4–6 and includes material associated with NCT, NCT 127, NCT DREAM, WayV, and NCT WISH.
That framing is more interesting than a standard celebrity front row. Idol wardrobe is usually consumed at speed—one stage, one fancam, one comeback cycle. Treating a decade of clothing as an archive suggests that K-pop styling is being presented as design history with its own memory and authorship. We think that is the most distinctively Seoul idea in this program, even if the runway itself still has to prove the concept.
The NCT flea market is scheduled for September 6 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. KST at the World Park lawn, with roughly 3,000 activity-related garments. Seoul says all proceeds will go to women, youth, and cultural causes. Advance reservation is through LotteON, with instructions on SM Entertainment’s SMile social channels. It is inaccurate to call every garment an iconic stage costume.
adidas puts Stan Smith inside the K-fashion program
An experiential adidas pop-up will show a “Stan Smith custom package” styled by Kim In-tae and a “Stan Smith Seoul Edition,” with QR-based product information, shopping, and an on-site drawing. The city has not established a U.S. release date, price, or stock level. Elsewhere at Lotte, QR links will connect selected runway products to its online store.
How to watch Seoul Fashion Week from the United States
- Start with the official channel. Subscribe to @SFW_official on YouTube and use its scheduled livestream or replay pages. A fan upload is not a substitute for the event feed.
- Check the official schedule again. Seoul has committed to streaming “major fashion shows.” That wording does not guarantee a live feed for every runway, presentation, exhibition, or pop-up.
- Read every listed date as KST. Korea does not change clocks for daylight saving time. The United States is still on daylight time during September 1–6.
- Set a reminder on the video page. Let YouTube translate the scheduled start into your device’s local time, then verify the date because some early Korean shows begin on the previous U.S. evening.
A KST-to-U.S. time cheat sheet
Visit Seoul lists general event hours as 10 a.m.–8 p.m., varying by program. The examples below convert that window; they are not a runway schedule.
| Korea time | Eastern Daylight | Central Daylight | Mountain Daylight | Pacific Daylight |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 a.m. KST | 9 p.m., previous day | 8 p.m., previous day | 7 p.m., previous day | 6 p.m., previous day |
| 2 p.m. KST | 1 a.m., same day | 12 a.m., same day | 11 p.m., previous day | 10 p.m., previous day |
| 8 p.m. KST | 7 a.m., same day | 6 a.m., same day | 5 a.m., same day | 4 a.m., same day |
For example, a 10 a.m. KST program on September 1 appears at 9 p.m. Eastern or 6 p.m. Pacific on August 31. Alaska, Hawaii, and most of Arizona require separate conversion; use the scheduled YouTube page rather than extrapolating from this table.
If you are in Seoul, “free” does not mean every runway seat is open
Visit Seoul labels the festival “free admission,” but that should not be read as a universal walk-in runway pass. The city ran a public ticket lottery through the official Seoul Fashion Week Instagram account from August 15–20, with two tickets for each winner. That application window had closed by this article’s August 29 fact check.
Public exhibitions, outdoor activations, and retail pop-ups may have different capacity or reservation rules. The NCT flea market already has its own advance-reservation route, while the DDP trade show is built for buyers and fashion business. Check the current Visit Seoul event notice, the official YouTube channel, and the organizer’s social accounts before traveling. A general event listing is not proof of admission to a specific show.
The practical verdict
DDP remains the industry engine; Lotte is the public-facing experiment. Our bet is that this season will be judged less by one viral look than by whether those two systems actually strengthen each other. NCT’s archive clothing, KIMHĒKIM’s anniversary return, and adidas’s Stan Smith activation are confirmed—but streams, seats, product availability, and reservations still need a last check at the source.
Sources and image notes
- Seoul Metropolitan Government, updated August 27, 2026: current brand counts, venue roles, NCT schedule, adidas activation, trade show, and shopping details.
- Seoul Metropolitan Government, updated August 14, 2026: DDP/Lotte split, 97-brand trade show, worldwide livestream statement, and August 15–20 public ticket lottery.
- Visit Seoul, published August 27, 2026: September 1–6 dates, 21 shows, 8 presentations, general hours, and free-admission listing.
- Seoul Metropolitan Government English release, posted August 21, 2026: international overview and global livestream access.
- Seoul Metropolitan Government, August 20, 2025: official explanation of the one-season-ahead collection cycle.
- Yonhap, August 27, 2026: secondary corroboration. Its supplied news photographs are marked against resale/database use and were not reused here.
- Inline venue photo: Ingolstadt, “Lotte World Tower by Pexels”, June 28, 2026, CC BY 4.0; resized from the 3,840 × 3,371 original. No watermark or creator mark was removed.
- Seoul’s key visuals were not reused: the source page labels them under Korea Open Government License Type 4, which bars commercial use and modification.
Editorial disclosure: K-Trend is not affiliated with Seoul Metropolitan Government, Seoul Fashion Week, Lotte, SM Entertainment, NCT, adidas, or any participating brand. This article contains no affiliate ticket or product links.