By Kwon Mee-yoo
A local specialty retailer of private label apparel (SPA) brand began in clothing and is now extending its reach to include footwear and underwear.
E-Land, which pioneered the domestic SPA market, opened a new brand Mixxo Secret last November. Mixxo Secret says it offers new products every month, which is more often than existing lingerie brands which offers seasonal new products every three months.
"The fashion industry is moving to SPA and E-Land entered the underwear market to dominate in advance," an E-Land spokesman said. "We expect that customers who are attracted to the trendy designs and reasonable prices of SPA brands will prefer SPA branded underwear as well."
Currently, Mixxo Secret has five branches and plans to expand to 20 branches with targeted sales of 20 billion won this year.
The underwear market will become more competitive as Zara Retail Korea will introduce Oysho, an underwear brand by Spain's Inditex Group, which owns Zara.
Meanwhile social commerce site Ticket Monster launched Perche, an SPA brand specializing in shoes, last November. The brand joined hands with renowned shoes designer Jinny Kim and introduced all shoes at 49,000 won and boots at 69,000 won.
The affordable price immediately drew the attention of fashionistas and sales grew 142 percent in just three months.
Perche introduces new types of shoes every month, appealing to customers who are always looking for new arrivals. It also expanded its range of products to bags and introduced a more expensive, high-end line Black Label in March.
"The accessories market is growing and we see more possibilities in SPA brands specializing in a single item. It could be shoes, bags or other fashion accessories," Perche spokeswoman Lim Se-hee said.
Shops in Myeong-dong and Garosu-gil, two popular shopping districts in Seoul, are filled with imported SPA brands such as H&M, Zara, Uniqlo and Forever 21, but local brands are ready to challenge them with better quality.
The size of the SPA market grew to 1.5 trillion won in Korea in just five years and is expected to soar to 20 trillion won in 2015.
The latest addition to the homegrown SPA brand is 8Seconds by Cheil Industries. Launched in February, the brand is gaining popularity.
Kim Ji-won recently browsed the 8Seconds in Myeong-dong and bought a simple cardigan there. She said the items were diverse, but some of them looked familiar, similar to other SPA brands.
"The quality wasn't as high as expected, but it is an SPA brand and I don't expect to wear this for a long time,” she said. “I will visit again later to check out their new products soon. Fast restocking is the attraction of SPA brands.”