The Korea Herald is publishing a series of interviews with the CEOs of small but aspiring brands that are taking Korean fashion and beauty overseas through online shopping malls. This is the first installment. -- Ed.

The office of teenage clothing shopping mall Dejou screams start-up. Tucked on the second floor of a drab building that also houses a PC gaming room and a traditional Korean soup store, the office is musty with dust coming off the thousands of garments piled on assembled shelves. Along one wall, hundreds of pairs of shoes -- along another, racks and racks of clothes.

“Sorry, we don‘t really have a conference room,” said 32-year-old Dejou CEO Noh Tae-ho as he moved some chairs into a small side storage room that doubled as the photo studio for an interview with The Korea Herald.

Noh’s younger sister Hyo-jung, 29, trotted into the room behind her brother. Together, the siblings represent Dejou, a shopping mall for young women in their teens and 20s that reached 10 billion won ($9.2 million) in sales last year.

“This year, we‘re looking at about 20 billion won,” said Tae-ho. Catering to shoppers in their teens and early 20s, the average shopper spends roughly 50,000 won per transaction.

Dejou began as Daze, a name chosen by Hyo-jung because of the store’s funky, unusual vintage clothes.

“The name Daze means confusion. The clothes were confusing. We would hang bones from shirts, things like that. Neon colors. That was my style,” Hyo-jung said.

Raised in Busan, Hyo-jung moved to Seoul when she turned 18 to pursue her dream of running a fashion business. She worked at a sports apparel store in a department store for two years, learning about the industry and how to interact with customers.

She began Daze out of her tiny studio apartment in 2010. Eventually, she moved from vintage over to more popular fast fashion-type clothes for young women. The shopping mall‘s name was also changed from Daze to Dejou for a more international appeal.

Today, Dejou spans two floors and employs 35 people.

Although Dejou had a loyal following thanks to Hyo-jung’s eye for fast-moving trends, it was losing money fast because of Hyo-jung‘s lack of interest and experience in managing finances. That was when her brother, Tae-ho, stepped in as co-CEO.

“For me, it was just about the clothes,” Hyo-jung said sheepishly as Tae-ho shook his head.

“I look at Dejou as a business, while Hyo-jung only thinks about our customers. We still clash a lot. For me, it’s about money,” Tae-ho said with a laugh.

Under Tae-ho‘s direction, the company began to turn a profit. Dejou teamed up with online shopping solutions provider Cafe24 to create sites in English and Japanese, and began to see sales growing overseas.

“Our overseas sales mostly come from Japan, and starting last month we saw some progress in Taiwan as well,” Tae-ho said.

According to Hyo-jung, who manages all of the creative aspects of the brand, trends for young women’s apparel are similar across different Asian countries -- making her offerings highly portable.

“When I look around fashion sites in Japan, China and Korea, they‘re all the same. The way they take pictures and so on. China also has a very fast-moving fashion market. What sells in China sells here, and vice versa,” she said.

When asked about what made Dejou different from other fast fashion-style online shopping malls, Hyo-jung pointed to quality. Dejou’s best-selling products are created by Hyo-jung herself, and produced by a local factory that Hyo-jung has worked with since the beginning of Daze.

“I don‘t really feel the need to constantly update products for the sake of updating,” she said. “We focus on creating a few products that will be trendy that season, and make them with the best quality at a low price.”

For next year, Dejou is looking at the Vietnamese market as the next place for growth.

“It’s a market that will grow similarly to China,” Tae-ho said. “It‘s got a lot of potential, so we’re looking to go there.”

“Vietnamese people also follow Korean fashion. The effect of Hallyu can definitely be felt there,” said Hyo-jung.

Eventually, Hyo-jung and Tae-ho said that they want to move past online to open offline stores both in Korea and abroad.

“There‘s a limit to what you can do online. The best thing is to have customers try on and touch the clothes before they buy them,” Hyo-jung said.

“The Korean online fashion market is packed, and eventually it’s going to stumble,” said Tae-ho. “That‘s when having an offline presence will be important.” 

By Won Ho-jung 
(hjwon@heraldcorp.com)