MODE AT PARIS SS 2024 RUNWAY SHOW
K-Fashion Leading the Way: Avatars and Real Models Stride Together on the Runway in ‘MODE at Paris’ Fashion Show
March 22nd: Paris Unveils ‘MODE at Paris 24S/S,’ Pioneering a New form of Fashion show
Blending metaverse tech with K-fashion, breaking down spatial and linguistic barriers to pioneer a fresh fashion culture.
Featuring 10 top Korean designer brands, drawing in 200+ attendees, including key figures from Europe’s fashion scene.
The <MODE at PARIS> 2024 S/S event, hosted by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (Minister Yu In Chon), organized by the Korea Creative Content Agency (President Jo Hyun-rae, hereinafter referred to as KOCCA), and sponsored by Naver Z, took place on March 22nd at The Westin Vendme Hotel in Paris, France. The event successfully showcased a groundbreaking concept of mixed reality crossover fashion show, merging virtual and real worlds, with the attendance of 200 fashion industry professionals, influencers, and stakeholders from Paris and Europe.
<MODE at PARIS> presented a unique fashion show that brought to life the collections of the <MODE at ZEPETO 2024 S/S> season, which have been showcased on Naver Z’s global metaverse platform, ZEPETO, since March 4th. The show featured ZEPETO human avatars donning collections alongside real models, creating an extraordinary spectacle on the runway. Particularly noteworthy is the enthusiastic response from local European fashion stakeholders, as <MODE at PARIS> introduced a new wave of K-fashion culture in France, a country renowned as a global fashion hub and home to one of the largest ZEPETO user bases in Europe.
Diversifying K-fashion Content Horizons through Integration of Various Cultural Technologies such as Metaverse, Augmented Reality, and AI
At <MODE at Paris>, 10 leading Korean fashion designer brands participated, unveiling two outfits per brand for a total of 20 ensembles, showcasing each brand’s unique personality and creativity. Selected through a competition organized by KOCCA, the participating brands included DOUCAN, MAISON NICA, MMAM, BONBOM, WNDERKAMMER, BMUET(TE), VEGAN TIGER, EYEEYE, JULYCOLUMN, and HANNAH SHIN.
Furthermore, the show’s music was a collaboration between the AI music creation company Pozalabs and Korea’s representative post-rock band, Jambinai’s Ilwoo Lee. Pozalabs utilized AI models to analyze the modern appeal of the ten participating brands and released four diverse tracks in genres such as cinematic and lounge, tailored to complement the contemporary brand show music with information on BPM, pitch range, and key instruments.
Ilwoo Lee of Jambinai, who participated in the music production, stated, ‘It was an attempt at a new approach to fashion show music. However, the use of artificial intelligence to analyze the music of the fashion show and receive suggestions for motifs and instrument usage for creation allowed for an experience of new creative methods.’
<MODE at ZEPETO> 2024 S/S Unveiled: Achieves 2 Million Visits within 3 Weeks, Setting New Performance Records
KOCCA has been presenting the metaverse showrooms and fashion show contents of Korean fashion designer brands since last year’s <MODE at ZEPETO> 2023 F/W season. This year, they have unveiled the 2024 S/S collection, available from March 4th to April 15th for six weeks. This season introduces a total of 141 metaverse fashion items from 10 brands, setting new popularity records with two million visits in just three weeks. In the previous <MODE at ZEPETO> 2023 F/W season, there were a total of 3.29 million participants over six weeks, with 95% of them being global users, marking the highest number of overseas users ever recorded on ZEPETO.
Additionally, during the 2024 S/S season, they will collaborate with ZEPETO’s popular world ‘Runway Z’ to host the ‘Runway Z X MODE at ZEPETO,’ where winners will be chosen among participants styling with <MODE at ZEPETO> items.
President Jo Hyun-rae of KOCCA stated, ‘Korean fashion meets cultural technologies such as the metaverse, artificial intelligence, and augmented reality, transcending regional and language boundaries to excite people worldwide,’ and expressed, ‘We will continue to support K-fashion to play a significant role as a leading content in K-culture through various means.
Looking ahead, the <MODE at PARIS> event is set to be presented at the Korean Cultural Center France from May 22nd to the end of October, featuring innovative content fused with cutting-edge technology for the general public.
Runway Looks
Photo: Press MODE at Paris
By Senior Fashion Editor 24FashionTV: Christina V Henningstad @christina_henningstad