Do not go gentle into that good night, old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light, though wise men at their end know dark is right, because their words had forked no lightning they, do not go gentle into that good night.
Seoul's Jung District launches AI platform for Dongdaemun fashion merchants
Dongdaemun Buyer Lounge at Dongdaemun Design Plaza Fashion Mall in Seoul / Courtesy of Seoul Jung District Office
By Jhoo Dong-chan
Jung District in central Seoul said Monday it has launched PROMAX, a free artificial intelligence (AI) image generation prompt platform developed specifically for merchants in the Dongdaemun fashion market, in what officials say is the first initiative of its kind by a local government in Korea.
The platform, developed by the district's Dongdaemun Buyer Lounge, provides ready-made text prompts that merchants can copy and feed into generative AI tools with photos of their clothing to produce professional-quality virtual model images.
Prompt writing, the process of composing detailed text instructions to guide AI image generators, had been a significant barrier for the merchants, who found trial and error too time-consuming.
The Dongdaemun Buyer Lounge, a multi-purpose fashion community space on the fourth floor of Dondgaemun Design Plaza Fashion Mall, began offering one-on-one AI training to merchants in September last year.
After seeing that merchants were interested in AI but struggled with actually using it, the district began platform development in May and ran a pilot before the official opening this month. The prompts are updated daily based on analyses of fashion magazines and current trends.
The platform recorded approximately 13,000 visits in its first month. Merchants said the tool allowed them to produce high-quality fashion imagery for product promotion with ease.
PROMAX is accessible at ddm.or.kr.
"We hope PROMAX lowers the barrier to AI adoption for merchants and helps strengthen the competitiveness of Dongdaemun's fashion industry," said Kim Kil-sung, mayor of Jung District. "We will continue to expand hands-on support so merchants can adapt effectively to a changing environment."
This article was published with the assistance of generative AI and edited by The Korea Times.