Undeterred by the raging spread of the omicron variant, Seoul Fashion Week, South Korea’s biggest fashion event held every March and October, is set to kick off Friday with in-person shows and events for the first time in three years.

Seoul Metropolitan Government, which organizes the biannual fashion event, said the 2022 fall-winter Seoul Fashion Week will run from March 18 to 23 in an online-offline hybrid format. On account of the limited number of on-site participants due to antivirus restrictions, fashion shows will be streamed online through YouTube, Naver TV and TikTok as well.

A total of 35 fashion brands -- 23 established designer brands for the Seoul Collection shows and 12 rookie designer brands for the Generation Next shows -- will be presenting their new collections on the catwalk, while 23 shows have been prerecorded for streaming.
Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon and the fashion event’s global ambassador Lee Jung-jae will attend the opening ceremony at 1 p.m. Friday at the Seoul Museum of Craft Art in central Seoul, where girl group Kep1er is scheduled to perform. Three designer brands -- Bonbom, C-Zann E and Beyond Closet -- will present in-person runway fashion shows at the event.

Seoul Fashion Week will hold an on-site exhibition where the visitors can try on designer brands’ products that are being showcased on the runaway shows and buy them at discounted prices. The exhibition will run through the end of May at Han Collection in central Seoul.

A series of 14 digital fashion films that incorporate virtual reality and augmented reality and feature major attractions in the city will be shown as well.

Miss Gee Collection will bring the Seoul Fashion Week to a close Wednesday with a prerecorded fashion show that will be livestreamed.

Performances by female dance crews Want, CocaNButter and La Chica -- all featured on Mnet’s hit dance competition show “Street Woman Fighter” -- will wrap up the fashion week festivities.